Podcasts about tech cocktail

Alex Adelman is the CEO & Co-founder of Lolli, a rewards application that lets people earn bitcoin when they shop online from 1,000+ top merchants. Alex was previously the CEO & Co-founder of Cosmic, the leading e-commerce gateway, which was acquired by PopSugar in '15 and then by Ebates in '17. Alex positioned Cosmic and Lolli as high growth, high value, and industry-leading technology companies, establishing strategic partnerships with key partners in e-commerce. Alex was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Retail & E-Commerce. His work has been featured on WSJ, Forbes, Fortune, Wired, TechCrunch, Cheddar, MarketWatch, and Digiday and he's presented at Advertising Week, Fashion Tech Forum, TechCrunch Disrupt, Tech Cocktail, Money 20/20, and Technori. Alex holds a BA in Economics from UNC-Chapel Hill. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/crypto-hipster-podcast/support

On this episode of the Startup of the Year Podcast, we hear an interview that our team did with John Fein during our 2020 Summit. John is founder and Managing Partner at Firebrand Ventures, a seed stage venture fund. Prior to founding Firebrand, John served as Managing Director for Techstars, a leading startup accelerator with over 40 programs around the world. Before Techstars, he spent nine years at UnitedHealth Group, managing large scale projects including scaling a business from zero to $1.5 billion per year and 1,500 employees in four years. In addition to the interview, Frank Gruber, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Established and Co-Founder of Established Ventures, talks about our first event in Chicago 15 years ago, when the company was Tech Cocktail, which later became Tech.Co and then ultimately becoming Established. We hear the “VC Minute” segment from Rich Maloy of Established Ventures who provides some more helpful advice for startups that are raising capital. The 2021 Startup of the Year Application is open! The top 100 startups will come together for additional opportunities to connect, showcase, and potentially take home the title of Startup of the Year at our annual Summit. You can see if your startup fits our criteria and apply today at: soty.link/apply We also once again talk about Finmark, which is financial planning software for startups for revenue forecasting, cash projections, and runway. It is one of those few products that we truly believe in and I think that it will help a lot of our community members, so please go check out Finmark and signing up for 30-day free trial at est.us/finmark Lastly, we invite you all to join our community today to access the support, expert advice, and resources you need to to elevate your startup by going to: est.us/join Thank you for listening, and as always, please check out the Established website and subscribe to the newsletter at www.est.us Checkout Startup of the Year at www.startupofyear.com Subscribe to the Startup of the Year Daily Deal Flow: www.startupofyear.com/daily-dealflow Subscribe to the Startup of the Year podcast: www.podcast.startupofyear.com Subscribe to the Established YouTube Channel: soty.link/ESTYouTube *** Startup of the Year helps diverse, emerging startups, founding teams, and entrepreneurs push their company to the next level. We are a competition, a global community, and a resource. Startup of the Year is also a year-long program that searches the country for a geographically diverse set of startups from all backgrounds and pulls them together to compete for the title of Startup of the Year. The program includes a number of in-person and virtual events, including our annual South By Southwest startup pitch event and competition. All of which culminate at our annual Startup of the Year Summit, where the Startup of the Year winner is announced, along with an opportunity at a potential investment. Established is a consultancy focused on helping organizations with innovation, startup, and communication strategies. It is the power behind Startup of the Year. Created by the talent responsible for building the Tech.Co brand (acquired by an international publishing company), we are leveraging decades of experience to help our collaborators best further (or create) their brand & accomplish their most important goals. Connect with us on Twitter - @EstablishedUs and Facebook - facebook.com/established.us/.

Alex Adelman is the CEO & Co-founder of Lolli, a rewards application that lets people earn bitcoin when they shop online from 1,000+ top merchants. Alex was previously the CEO & Co-founder of Cosmic, the leading e-commerce gateway, which was acquired by PopSugar in '15 and then by Ebates in '17. Alex positioned Cosmic and Lolli as high growth, high value, and industry-leading technology companies, establishing strategic partnerships with key partners in e-commerce. Alex was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Retail & E-Commerce. His work has been featured on WSJ, Forbes, Fortune, Wired, TechCrunch, Cheddar, MarketWatch, and Digiday and he's presented at Advertising Week, Fashion Tech Forum, TechCrunch Disrupt, Tech Cocktail, Money 20/20, and Technori. Alex holds a BA in Economics from UNC-Chapel Hill. Jamil Hasan is a Generation X Author and experienced data intelligence technology builder with two decades of experience leading data-based teams at Fortune 100 companies, including AIG, Prudential Financial, and Ingersoll Rand. Jamil believes that skill and experience, not just age, is the most important factor required to build and lead corporate organizations. His unique story, as someone on the ground floor of the 2008 financial crisis and his role to help repay the $180 billion AIG bailout, enabled him to come face-to-face with many of the societal ills facing Generation X today and their causes. As the result of his experience, Jamil has developed a path forward for his fellow Gen Xers to restore his generation's financial standing in society today and to rebuild the American Dream for Generation X.

The Inbound Success Podcast launched on August 28, 2017 and today marks the 100th episode, and 100 straight weeks of publishing interviews with high performing marketers. On this week's Inbound Success Podcast, I'm taking a break from interviewing guests to share with you 13 trends that I've observed from the 99 interviews I did throughout the last two years. Listen to the podcast to learn more about the 13 things that the world's top-performing inbound marketers are doing, and get links to the specific episodes where you can dive deeper into each topic. Transcript Welcome back to the Inbound Success podcast. My name's Kathleen Booth. I'm your host, and this is the 100th episode of the podcast. I thought this was a great opportunity for me to take a break from the usual routine of interviewing some of the incredible marketers that I get to speak to every week and look back on the last 99 episodes and try and digest some lessons learned. I've had the incredible good fortune of speaking to some really amazing marketers in the last two years as I've done this podcast. It's given me an opportunity to meet people I otherwise never would have met, to learn some things that have really kind of made a difference for me in the way I think about marketing, and have prompted me to take a second look and reevaluate the way I've been doing some things. So, thought it was a great opportunity to share some of those lessons learned with all of you. How The Inbound Success Podcast Got Started But first, I wanted to just take a moment and tell a story about why I started the podcast. It was about two and a half years ago that I had my own marketing agency, Quintain Marketing. I had had the agency for 11 years. I'd gone to a lot of marketing conferences and listened to tons of podcasts, and watched webinars, always looking to make myself a better marketer. I had a lot of clients that I wanted to help. I also wanted to market my own agency and do better every day. I always would listen to these folks talk about the marketing work they were doing and the incredible results they were getting, and so infrequently felt that there was anything really tangible that I could take away from it and immediately use to improve my own marketing. This podcast was really an attempt to solve for that. It was me trying to scratch my own itch, and in doing so hopefully helping some of you. The interesting thing about this has been that it has certainly done that for me, and it has also done so much more. I already mentioned that it's enabled me to meet so many people I otherwise would never have met. There are a lot of people in the marketing world that I really admire and respect. And having the excuse of saying, "Hey, would you like to come on a podcast?" is a great way to meet someone new and to meet and to form that relationship, so that's been great. I've also met some really incredible people that I didn't know about through my guests when I ask them who else is doing a really great job with inbound marketing. And those relationships have been amazing. One of the most amazing and incredible things about this is that it changed the entire course of my career. One of first people I interviewed when I started the podcast was Bob Ruffolo, who is the founder and CEO of IMPACT. Now, I work at IMPACT. The reason is that before we started to hit the record button for the podcast interview, we were just talking about how things were going. I was telling him that I thought I might be ready to make a change, and that led to me selling part of my company to IMPACT and joining the team. That's been a really major shift in my life and a great one. I've learned so much. I get to work with some really smart people every day and do very, very interesting work. All this has come out of this little podcast. And most importantly, I've learned a lot about marketing. As I said, that was my original goal. 13 Lessons From Interviewing 99 High Performing Marketers So without further ado, I looked back through the 99 episodes I've done before today and really saw 13 themes emerge. That's what I'm going to share with you today. 1. There Is No "Secret Sauce" The first one ... And some of these, by the way, are going to seem like no-brainers, but they're important because it's important to remind ourselves of the things that we kind of already know. First one is, in most cases there really is no secret sauce to being an amazing marketer. The folks that I interviewed who were the most successful have a few things in common. Number one, they are voracious learners. They're always trying to improve their knowledge. They're always hungry for more. And they're consistent. That's huge, the consistency. A great example of that is Goldie Chan. I interviewed her. She's often referred to as the green-haired Oprah of LinkedIn. She has the longest running daily channel on LinkedIn. She's posted a new LinkedIn video every day for I think it's about two years. It's incredible. It doesn't matter where she is, what's happening, whether she's feeling well, whether she's traveling, what her access to Wifi is, she finds a way to do it because consistency is so important for her. And it's really paid off. They also do a few things and do them really well. A great example of that is Rev Ciancio who I talked with about Instagram marketing. Rev has an incredible Instagram presence. Which by the way, do not look at it when you're hungry because his pictures are all of mouthwatering hamburgers, french fries, pizzas, chicken wings, nachos, essentially everything that's bad for you, but that tastes so good. But, Rev has a fascinating strategy for how he approaches Instagram and has built an entire business around it. He does one thing, and he does it really well. Alex Nerney talked about Pinterest similarly, just a platform a lot of inbound marketers overlook, but he's really figured out a way to make it sing for him. The hungry learners who are consistent and who pick a few things and do them really well, that's really the secret sauce, which essentially isn't so secret. That's number one. 2. Listen To Your Customers And Prospects And Use What You Learn in Your Marketing Number two is they really listen to customers and prospects and use that in their marketing. Again, sounds like a no-brainer. We always talk about the need to do persona research and to build buyer personas, but I think what happens is we get very often so caught up in building the actual persona that we forget the big picture, that it's not about having this fictional profile of a person. It's really about understanding the way our audience thinks, what their real pain points and needs are, and the language they use to talk about that. A couple of the interviews I did were great examples of this. Barron Caster at rev.com who uses their own transcription product to transcribe all of the conversations they have with customers and then pull actual words that customers have used out and feed that into the copy on their website and landing pages, and that's gotten them amazing results. Val Geisler and Joel Klettke, two of the most accomplished conversion copywriters out there, both also talked about this type of research and understanding deeply, deeply the needs of customers and prospects. Paul Blamire at Atomic Reach, who is head of customer success and makes it a point to speak to new customers shortly after they've onboarded and really understand what brought them to the company and how the product is solving their needs. And he feeds that back in not only to marketing but to product development, to every aspect of the business to deliver a better customer experience from first touch in the marketing process all the way through the experience of using the company's product. 3. You Don't Need Fancy Tools Or A Big Budget Number three, you don't necessarily need fancy tools or a big budget to get incredible results. There are some really great examples of this. Oli Billson who I recently interviewed about the small events he's doing that are delivering tremendous amounts of revenue to his business. Chris Handy who talked about marketing for a Pre-K school, really small campaigns, but they just really ... They understood their audience, and they used the available tools that they had and got terrific results for the school. Adam Sand, who's using direct mail in conjunction with inbound marketing, super old school, but very effective for him. And Harry Campbell, who's The Rideshare Guy, and he's probably the top content creator in the ridesharing space. So think Uber, Lyft, Lime, Bird. He just started blogging and has created some great content and a big following. You really don't need fancy tools or a big budget. You can do it on your own with what you've got, if I go back to the first thing, if you're consistent, if you pick a few things and do them really well, and if you're a hungry learner who is willing to roll your sleeves up and apply what you're learning. 4. Connect With Your Audience On An Emotional Level Number four, the best marketers connect with their audiences on an emotional level, another thing that might seem obvious but that I think a lot of marketers get wrong. We tend to put our marketing hats on and make our marketing all about ourselves or we fall back into that comfortable place of corporate jargon, and kind of robotic speech, and use words like leverage and synergy. Nobody talks like that in real life, or not at least the people that you want to hang out with. The people who talked about this were Kieran Flanigan of HubSpot who shared their hearts and minds strategy for creating content with two types of content, content that solves a person's problems and tells them how to do something, that's really that mind's content, and then the heart's content, which taps into a pain and emotional need that the audience has. Then, Katie Stavely from Mautic. This is ironic that these are the two examples I'm giving for this one because HubSpot and Mautic could be considered two different sides of the same coin, HubSpot being a paid marketing automation, CRM, customer service platform, and Mautic being a completely free open source alternative to it. Katie talked about how important it was to be authentic in your marketing, especially with their audience, which it's all about community. It's opensource software, so your community is helping you develop your product. But regardless, the idea is to really make that emotional connection. 5. Sometimes The Biggest Wins Come From Content That Is Not Related To Your Products Or Services Number five, with content marketing, sometimes the biggest wins happen when you don't create content about your products or services. We as marketers, as inbound marketers, think a lot about top-, middle-, and bottom-of-the funnel strategies. We're always brainstorming what are the questions that our audience is asking as relates to our product or service. That often leads us to create content that is very much about us and not so much about our audience. But, I had two interviews that I thought really highlighted how successful you can be if you flip that script and talk nothing about yourself. What I mean by that is ... I'll start with Stephanie Baiocchi, who was actually Stephanie Casstevens at the time I interviewed her. She hadn't been married yet. And funny enough, she was not working at IMPACT. That's another great outcome of the podcast. Now she is. But, she talked about a campaign that she was running for a client that sold solutions for medical waste from physicians' practices. Originally, they were creating a ton of content around medical waste, and it just wasn't working. The reason is that their audience, which is really the office managers for physicians' practices, already has a medical waste solution. You can't be in business if you don't, so they weren't out there searching for any information about medical waste. They didn't even realize they needed to switch providers or that they had a problem. It was when she kind of took a step back and thought, "What are the biggest problems that office managers have? It doesn't need to have anything to do with medical waste," and she realized it was patient no-shows. They created a patient no-show policy template that office managers could use. That was a total home run. What it did was it opened up the conversation with their audience so that eventually they could begin talking about medical waste. But at that top-of-the-funnel level, they needed first to really open that conversation, and product- and service-related content wasn't going to cut it. Another person who did that really well was Ryan Bonnici, who is now the CMO of G2 Crowd, but at the time was working at HubSpot. HubSpot's a company that has a huge audience. Of course, trying to broaden the top of the funnel at a company like HubSpot is challenging. All the low-hanging fruit is gone, and so you really have to get creative. He was trying to target a small business audience. He really asked himself, "What are the problems that small businesses have?" And, again, doesn't have to have anything to do with HubSpot. He realized when you're starting your business or when you come to work at a small business, one of the first things you have to do is come up with an email signature. You're usually either copying one that somebody else in the company has created or you have to create it from scratch, and it's kind of a pain. He built an email signature generator, an online tool where you could type in some information about yourself and it would spit out a really nice-looking email signature. That tool generated a ton of traffic, leads, and revenues for HubSpot, and it cost them only $6,000 to build it, but the impact was enormous. So, great lesson learned about getting out of the habit of creating only product- and service-related content and thinking bigger. 6. Paid Ads Are An Essential Part Of Any Inbound Marketing Strategy Number six, the old myth that paid ads are not inboundy is dead, or it should be dead. This one was woven throughout almost every interview I did. It's funny because when I first started working with inbound marketing, it was back with my old agency. I had discovered HubSpot. We were following their original methodology of attract, convert, close, delights, for those of you who've been in the HubSpot world for a long time and all. I remember many times going to INBOUND and seeing Brian Halligan stand on stage and talk about how the old way, the old interruptive way of marketing was paid ads, and people didn't like being interrupted. I think we all read that as, well, paid ads are not acceptable if you're an inbound marketer. That myth started dying, I think, several years ago, but it's worth repeating that paid ads are, I would say, not even just inboundy, they're essential to an inbound strategy in this day and age. I'll just list off a bunch of names of my guests who've talked about it. This isn't even a complete list, but Mark Rogers, who at the time was with Carney and grew The Daily Carnage newsletter using Facebook ads; Sterling Snow from Divvy who's used ads to drive leads for their platform; Moby Siddique who has his own inbound agency and does some incredible Facebook ads work with Messenger bots; AJ Wilcox, who is a LinkedIn ads expert; Ali Parmelee, who's one of my coworkers here at IMPACT who does incredible things with Facebook ads; Anthony Sarandrea; Rick Kranz. The list goes on and on. All of them attribute the success that they're getting and the incredible results to some form of paid ads. Let that be the final nail in the coffin of that old myth. Let's really embrace ads, and not just checking the box with ads and promoting our posts, but really taking a full funnel approach to advertising. Because that's the other thing that these folks talked about is it's not about boosting something on Facebook. This is about really digging in and getting good at ads and thinking how ads can be used at every stage of the funnel. 7. Content Distribution Is Critical Number seven, it's not enough to create and publish your content on your website. You've got to promote it and distribute it. This is one that I've heard time and time again. A lot of the best marketers I've spoken to say you should spend twice as much time promoting and distributing your content as you do creating it. I think for a lot of us that equation is backwards. One person who talked about that was Kipp Bodnar who is the CMO of HubSpot, probably one of the companies that is the best at inbound marketing. He talked about what a game changer it was in the last year when HubSpot really threw some muscle behind content distribution and how that impacted their traffic. This is a company that already had amazing traffic, by the way. Then, Phil Singleton. I loved my interview with Phil who is an SEO expert and an author. Phil talked about this great strategy he uses for clients where he's creating e-books, just like lots of inbound marketing agencies do. But then he takes the e-books that he makes for clients, or he takes a collection of blogs, for example, and compiles them into any book, and he publishes them as Kindle e-books on amazon.com, and also in some cases as hard copy books through Amazon direct publishing. It is so simple, and straightforward, and inexpensive. It blows my mind that more marketers are not doing this. It was a cool episode, so definitely check that out. But yeah, the lesson is don't just like write those blogs, create those e-books. Think about what are you going to do with them once they're published. How are you going to get them out in front of the world? 8. Original Research Can Drive Tremendous Results Number eight, original research can have amazing results. I had several interviews where people touched on what has come of original research. One of the people I think that that is most famous in the marketing world for doing this is Andy Crestodina. He has been doing a blogging survey for several years and really credits that with bringing a lot of attention to his agency, Orbit Media, out of Chicago, giving him a ton of backlinks and press. It's a pretty simple survey. He does put quite a bit of effort into promoting the survey itself so he can get a lot of responses, and then once he gets those responses into packaging that content so that he can turn it into things like infographics and articles, et cetera. But, it's not just Andy. Michele Aymold from Parker Dewey uses original research and data to boost her marketing results. Clare Carr from Parse.ly, they actually don't even have to do that much research because simply by the nature of the product that they sell they have access to a lot of proprietary data. She's really productized that and used it to get a tremendous amount of press. In fact, she was able to dramatically cut back the amount of content she was creating while getting better results because the data itself was so attractive to their audience, and it also helped her reduce their PR spend. Then, Rebecca Corliss at Owl Labs. They produced the state of remote work, and that's gotten them quite a bit of traction. 9. Community Is A Powerful Tool To Fuel Growth Number nine, community is such a powerful tool for marketing. This is an interesting one because here at IMPACT we've been working really hard over the course of the last two years to build our own community called IMPACT Elite, which is on Facebook. We've learned a lot about community in the course of doing that. I would say it has been a game changer for our business, certainly. We now have over 5,000 people in that community. It's a delicate balance how you run it. You can't make it all about yourself. It has to truly be about helping the members of the community and getting them to the point where they're almost running it, if you will. I spoke to several other people who have built communities and had similar experiences in terms of the community being a fundamental tool in the growth of their business. One was Bill Faeth who is a marketer who specializes in the limousine and transport business. He has Limo University, and he has a big community around that of limousine companies. Frank Gruber, who started Tech Cocktail in the beginning and turn it into Tech.co, which was then acquired, he now has a company called Established. But, he began this grassroots community all over the country of startups and people interested in the startup ecosystem and wound up building a tremendous media business from that. Nikki Nixon who at the time I interviewed her was running the FlipMyFunnel community for Terminus. Ameer Rosic who has a community focused on blockchain called Blockgeeks. And Mark Graham, who is an old friend of mine doing amazing things, he's up in Canada and has a software platform called Commonsku and has built a great community around that. All of these folks doing incredible things with communities in very different niches, I should say. For Bill, it was limo companies. For Frank, it was startups. For Nikki, it's people who are ABM practitioners. For Ameer, it's folks in the blockchain community. And for Mark Graham, it's people in the promotional products world. All of these different niches need communities and people are hungry to connect with others who have similar interests as they do. 10. The Quality Of Your Content REALLY Matters Content quality. I had a couple of great interviews on this. This is one that I'd love to talk with more people who are focused on this. In this day and age, you can't just be creating content and checking the box. You have to really create great content that is better than anything else out there if you really want to get amazing results. One person who talked a lot about this was Oli Gardner and how he is putting a lot of effort into really making the content that they create be the best that's available on the Internet. Emily Maxie from Very talked about this, too, really digging deep and creating unbelievable resources for your audience. Both of these folks are getting great results in terms of traffic, and that traffic ultimately turning into leads, because they took the time to create in-depth pieces that really added value for their audience. Seems like it should be obvious, it's another one of these, but it's really not too a lot of us. I mean, you might think your content's really good, but is it the best? When you Google that topic that you created content about, is your piece the best thing that you can find in the search results? If not, go back and spend the time and make it better. I think one of the lessons I've learned is it's better to make less content that's better content than it is to create a high volume. 11. Creating A Podcast - Or Being A Guest On One - Is A Good Way To Build Your Brand Another theme that came out was podcasting. It's sort of ironic because we're on a podcast talking about podcasting. But a lot of my interviews, as I went back and reviewed, had to do with podcasting, beginning with George B Thomas, who I've had the privilege to work with over the years here at IMPACT. He's now at Impulse Creative. George is a prolific podcaster, and he's ... It might seem easy when you listen to him. It just seems like, "Oh, there's a guy that just has a great rapport with his audience," but he puts a ton of thought into how he does these podcasts, how he structured them so that they not only deliver value for the audience, but that they have naturally built-in incentives for people to share them and to grow his audience. That's really worth listening to if you're somebody who wants to start a podcast. Andrew Dymski is another person who's been podcasting for a long time and who I've been a guest on his podcast. He's been a guest on mine. He's got some great insights. Ryan Hawke, who has The Learning Leader podcast, Ryan blew my mind just with how prepared he comes to everything. He talked about this, too, how before he does an interview the amount of preparation he does, the amount of preparation he does when he even just invites somebody to come on his podcast. This guy is serious business, and that's why he's so successful. He really has put the thought into it and turned his podcast into a business. Dan Moyle came on the show and talked about podcast guest interviews. So not necessarily starting a podcast, but if you want to get the word out, going on other podcasts as a guest. At the time, he was with a company called Interview Valet. What's been really cool for me is seeing the other side of that. I get pitched a lot by companies like Interview Valet, and there are certainly other ones as well. They'll send me an email and say, "Listened to your show. Thought it was great. Here's a guest that I think would be really good for you." That's how I've gotten a lot of my more interesting guests. There's something to that podcast guesting strategy that really I think can help you get traction and raise your profile if you're trying to build a personal brand or trying to get the word out about a product or a service. There are plenty of companies like Interview Valet that, for a fee, will take care of that for you. It's kind of like having a talent agent. I also talked to Jay Acunzo about podcasting. He is actually a consultant to other companies and helps them create, produce, and get the best results out of their podcasts. One of his clients is Drift, which comes up a lot on my show. People love Drift, always cited as one of the best examples of a company doing inbound marketing really well, and they have a couple of podcasts. Then, Jeff Large of Come Alive Creative. Lots of folks talking about podcasting. It really stuck out to me that it's not just about, hey, everybody should have a podcast, and I don't think everyone should. It's not right for everybody. But, podcasting can play a role in almost everybody's marketing strategy for sure. 12. Video, Video, Video Number 12, video. Can't have a list of trends and things that are important in marketing without talking about video these days. Some of the guests that I've had that have spoken about this are some of the more impressive people that have been on this podcast. In 2019, I opted to kick the year off with an interview with Marcus Sheridan, who is an amazing man that is a big role model for me. I currently get to work with him at IMPACT. But, he's somebody that I followed for years and I have so much respect for because he sees things about marketing and about customer behavior that a lot of other people don't, even though they're staring us in the face. One of the things that he has really seen and committed to is that when it comes to marketing and selling, we can't just tell people something. We have to show it to them, too, and we show it to them using video. He talked about how important video was going to be in 2019. I know that he's out speaking at conferences and talking about video all over the world. Also, Eric Siu. I kicked off 2018 with Eric Siu doing predictions for last year. He talked about video as well and was like, "Video's going to be huge in 2018." So in both of my kind of yearly prediction episodes, the guests that I've had have cited video as one of the biggest things we should be paying attention to. And then, of course, I already mentioned her, but Goldie Chan, who is a LinkedIn influencer and creates a new LinkedIn video every single day, has made a career around those videos. She's amazing. She travels all over the world and is sought after as a speaker because of the LinkedIn video she creates. And Dennis Yu who has turned video into a formula for building people's personal brands. It's really impressive what he does. They're these short little videos that he films. Using that medium has helped countless people create brands for themselves. 13. Lead With Brand Which brings me to my 13th and last lesson learned from 99 interviews with incredible marketers, and that is that all of these strategies, and tactics, and approaches are powerful. But at the end of the day, the most important thing in marketing is brand. Brand is paramount. Without it, you can have some quick wins but you'll never have a true success that will last over the long term. I'm only going to cite one example here because it's the one that comes up the most. And if you listen to this podcast with any degree of regularity, you know that at the end I always, always ask my guests, "Company or individual, who do you think is doing inbound marketing really well right now?" There is one company/individual, the company and the marketer who's spearheading it for them, that by far comes up more than anybody else, and that is Drift and Dave Gerhardt, who I was very fortunate to have as a guest early on. I can't tell you the number of times people have mentioned Drift, and it's not just people from the marketing world. It's folks that have come onto this podcast from all different industries, and they all cite Dave Gerhart and his work building a brand at Drift as the one succeeding the most with inbound marketing. It's not for me to say what that brand is or to really try to encapsulate what Dave has done, but I think it's fair to say that they've built a brand that's incredibly authentic. There's no artifice. There's no fancy tricks about it. They, of everybody, really reflect everything I've said about the past, you know, this list of 12 to 13 trends I just spoke about today. When I look back through this list, they are doing a few things and doing them really well. They really listen to their customers. It's not about fancy tools or a big budget. The things that make them successful don't have anything to do with that. It's about connecting on emotional level. It's about creating content that sometimes doesn't have anything to do with your products or services. They do paid ads. And it's not enough to create and publish your content, you've got to promote it. They are so good at that. They've got a tremendous community, really high-quality content, a bunch of podcasts. They use video better than almost anybody else, especially on LinkedIn. Checkout Dave Gerhart's LinkedIn presence. And they just have a really strong brand. So my hat is off to Dave Gerhart and the team at Drift for ... If I had to give out an award for top inbound marketers, I think it would go to them. Thank YOU For Listening But really, everybody that I've interviewed over the course of the last two years has been so impressive. It is just my absolute privilege to get to do this every single week. I also wanted to say thank you to you for listening. Podcasting is a funny exercise. As I record this, it's Sunday morning, and I'm sitting in my home office, which is a tiny little room that actually had to be permitted as a closet because it's so small. There's chaos happening around me in my house. I'm by myself talking into a microphone. I'll go away, and I'll turn this into an episode. It'll go live tomorrow. You'll be hearing this Monday, if you get the episode right when it comes out or sometime after, and you're out there listening. But when I create these things, it's just me in a room. To know that there are people who choose to listen to this every week is just an unbelievable honor and a privilege to me. So, thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening to this content. I hope so much that you've learned something from it and that, even if it's in a small way, it's helped you get better results from your marketing and feel like a smarter marketer. If that has happened, then I feel like I've succeeded. With that, I will say I would love to hear from you. It's been a hundred episodes. If you are a regular listener, please take a moment and contact me. I always say at the end you can tweet me @workmommywork, which is my Twitter handle, but you can also message me on LinkedIn. You can email me at kbooth@impactbnd.com. You can send a carrier pigeon. However you want to do it, I would love it if you would get in touch and let me know what you like about the podcast and what's something that I can improve because I'd love to make the next hundred episodes even better. With that, I won't belabor it. Thank you again for listening, and I'll see you next week. Or not see you, I'll be talking to you next week for episode 101.  

There's been lots of talk lately about why brands should think like, and even become, media companies. But how do you actually build a media company? This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Frank Gruber shares the story of how he created Tech Cocktail and eventually transformed it into TechCo, a startup-focused media company that was recently acquired. From how to develop and grow and events business to the best way to build a robust content engine and strategies for building an audience, Frank covers in detail the strategies and tactics he used to transform TechCo from a scrappy grass roots network of startup founders into a thriving media business. Listen to the podcast to learn more about Frank's journey with TechCo and what he advised the big brands that he consults with today on when it comes to thinking like a media company. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to The Inbound Success podcast. I'm your host, Kathleen Booth, and today my guest is Frank Gruber, the founder of Established as well as the founder of TechCo. Welcome Frank.  Frank Gruber (guest): Thank you, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.  Frank and Kathleen recording this episode Kathleen: Yeah. For those people who are listening, I have been chasing Frank down for weeks if not months to get him on this podcast- Frank: Sorry. Kathleen: -because, selfishly ... No, no, no. It's worth the wait. Selfishly, I have been wanting to pick your brain because you are somebody I met several years back in a networking group and in the time since, you grew TechCo quite a bit as a media platform, exited, and now you have a new company. But the reason I was excited to interview you is that I'm at IMPACT, and really, my main focus is transitioning us from an agency-first brand and business model, to a publisher or media company-first model. There's so much I want to learn from you and I'm super excited to dig in, but before I do that, tell our audience a little bit about yourself and your background and how you came to be where you are right now. Frank: Sure. Yeah, sure. I have kind of a product background to begin with. Years ago, I was doing product development for bigger brands like AOL and Tribune - a lot of it very content driven. I got into content and was one of the really early bloggers out there and had a site called Somewhat Frank and was a first contributor for Tech Crunch and then started a company called Tech Cocktail. The whole idea behind Tech Cocktail was to better connect and amplify the local communities that were out there. As you saw a rise of these different communities where there were startups happening and not a lot happening to kind of tell the story. So more or less, I started doing events, which turned into an online component, where we started TechCo and we grew that audience over the last decade from zero to millions of readers all around the world. Then, just recently, this last January, it was acquired by an international publisher. So, it's been quite a journey. A decade "instant success" or whatever you want to call it. Kathleen: Right. Frank: Along the way there was a lot of ups and downs and, obviously, we learned a ton because we were really pulled into the direction that we went, because it really started as very much a grassroots thing, and side hustle for me, because I was doing website development for AOL and Tribune, at the time. So yeah, here we are now, and I've kind of transitioned out of TechCo, and that's kind of running, and continuing to grow, and I've got a new company called Established, which is more or less helping brands with innovation slash startup programs. Helping them to better connect and create that innovation which is tough to do internally at big companies, and so we're helping kind of take some of the tools that we learned ... tools, and kind of lessons learned from building a media company, and taking those things, and now putting them onto a bigger stage with some of these larger brands, and helping them along the way, too. So, that's what we've been up to. Kathleen: That's great, and what I was particularly struck by, when you and I spoke about doing this interview, was that we're kind of navigating two different sides of the same coin. So in my case IMPACT has a long history as an agency, and we're trying to build this media company, and now you're really transitioning into an agency model. I think if we met in the middle, we would have the Wonder Twin powers. Frank: That's so true. And it's funny, I mean it's such a convergence right now, and that's what we started to see when we were at TechCo, we were actually behind the scenes, doing more or less agency type work, for brands. And some of those clients we were able to continue to work with, with Established, you know, the folks that acquired TechCo wanted to continue to grow that media component, not so much muddy the water with the different components of creating a, more or less a consultancy, plus running and growing a media company. It's interesting. We're seeing that across the board. You're seeing agencies acquire, or grow, media arms and vice versa. So I think it's really interesting to see, and now we're trying to help some of those bigger guys, now, with the different tactics we learned along the way. Kathleen: Yeah, in our case, we were very much inspired by the two Joe Pulizzi books, Content Inc. and Killing Marketing. Joe was the founder of the Content Marketing Institute, and he's written these books and Killing Marketing is about why you should actually start as a media brand, kind of like you did, and build an audience, and then you're audience will essentially tell you what your product should be through the feedback you're getting. Frank: Yeah. Kathleen: Yeah, and if you create products that come out of that feedback, you're almost guaranteed to succeed. As opposed to the other way around, which is the way most of us do it, where we build the products, and then we're like, "Well geez, now I need to build an audience," so I thought that was pretty interesting. Frank: No, it's so true, it's more or less ... that's how we believe, too. So we started by hosting events to showcase startups all around the country. And we, at one point, were doing 100 events. It's very much a grassroots movement, where we gathered hundreds of thousands of people together, over the course of a year, and more or less we were building this groundswell. And that was our Petri dish of people that we could just send and say, "Okay what is our next thing?" That's how it kind of turned into a media company, is we started producing content, and going that direction, and so I can totally see that. It's all about building that audience, and once you have an audience, you're able to do a lot. You can build a media company, or you could build a product, or you could offer other services, or whatever it is you're trying to do. That's the thing. Bottom line, we all had the opportunity to do that. Whether it be through this, or through a podcast, or through an online blog, or whatever. Kathleen: That's so true, and that's what we're telling all of our clients, is that you need to think like a media company to really be successful at marketing. It's kind of table stakes now. Frank: Right. From Tech Cocktail to TechCo Kathleen: What I would love to do is rewind the clock back to the very, very early days of Tech Cocktail, and I want to start just by asking how did you get people to these events? If you're starting with events, the holy grail is butts in seats, whether those are real seats, or virtual seats, or what have you. But, especially because you did events in different cities, how did you get that word out, and what was your grassroots engine? Frank: Right, yeah. So I think to begin with, it started very simply as a local thing. It was Chicago, and D.C., and then a couple other cities, and that was it, and it was really focused on getting that local word out. For that, we were leveraging our own networks. This is 2006, 2007 timeframe, so if you think about it, there wasn't the social movement. That was just the beginning, right? Of Web 2.0, and the social movement, so ... haven't heard Web 2.0 in a while. So more or less, we were leveraging that wave to be able to get the audience to come out, and so, yes it was a lot of little things, like blocking and tackling, or whatever, but also it was the opportunity now, that there were only a few people on Twitter, and there were only a few people using LinkedIn, and there were only a few people using YouTube, and some of those other technologies, and we leveraged those to grow an audience organically. And so I think that's how we started. Once we started getting into the situation where we were actually doing events all over the country, there weren't those advantages ... 'cause at that time, I think that was an advantage, to use those tools, and obviously time's moved, and things change, and so we had to continue to be flexible, and change as well, and so we started leveraging email as well. We started a big push towards notifying people via email newsletters and things like that in their local area. So, very hyper local about the next event that's coming to Detroit, or Denver, or whatever. I think that was a big part of our success as well, was we were able to get to people's inboxes, and I still feel like that's one of the number one places that you connect with people. Even with all the Snapchats and the Instagrams, or whatever, out there, I think that email's still pretty powerful. And so I think that's what we were able to leverage. And then also, just connecting with our networks, and being able to do the, "Hey, we're coming to town," every time we did it, and kind of connect with the right people.  I think where it got really difficult was when we started to do back to back to back. We were literally at one point doing events every single week, maybe sometimes in different cities. Kathleen: Wow. Frank: And that got to be tougher, because it's harder to duplicate the efforts, even if you create systems or whatever, you miss things, right? You can't do the same kind of VIP treatment that you would on every single event, and that's where it got really difficult. And we learned from that, so obviously scaled it back, and continued on our efforts on the online side. But, we also learned that as that was happening, everyone was creating spaces. Like there was now hubs in every market, like the 1871s in the world popping up, and accelerators in every single market, which didn't exist 10 years ago. And so all these different places were already converging people, and so the point of bringing the events together, and bringing people together was to create that convergence, and create the collisionable moments that happen and there's still a need for certain kind of events that connect people, but it was becoming table stakes, in that there was stuff happening everywhere, so we started to scale back the events, and really push towards the online component, when we saw that happening. And I think it was the right move for us, and ultimately, we were able to move all our offline events into an online program called Startup of the Year, which we're actually still running, to better showcase startups from all around the country. Kathleen: Now is that, that's an awards program? Frank: Yeah, it's a program that tries to find the most interesting companies all over. It's very inclusive. We look for really diverse startup founders, as well as teams, and geographically diverse as well. So yeah, it was basically our kind of community slash events program, that we were doing forever as Tech Cocktail, and we rebranded as Startup of the Year, and we're continuing to push ahead with that. It's about a ten month program. Kathleen: And how do you identify those startups? Do you have a network, or are they applying? Frank: Yeah, so they're applying. It's a little bit of everything again. So similar tactics, in that we were leveraging emails before, we're still now leveraging emails. We were able to continue the email focus from Startup of the Years past, as well as our personal networks, as well as reaching out to different local community leaders. We're part of something called the Startup Champions Network, which is basically ecosystem builders in every market, and we partnered with them, as well, and more or less, trying to find those local community leaders that can help spread the word is a big part of it, but also, we're still leveraging social. There's certain components of social that work really well. Some that we used in the past that worked great don't work as well anymore. It's interesting to see that trend. We even saw a trend in things like Facebook, which for a long time was driving a significant amount of interest, and whatnot, and engagement, and now it's gone to pay. You can't really get anything found unless you pay, and so that's totally different. Think about when we first started using Facebook. It wasn't that way. Things bubbled up and you were able to find things. Now the first thing they offer you is, "Oh, would you like to boost this?" You know? And you're like, "Well, no! I posted it, I thought that was all I needed to do!" So now you're seeing more people throw more money towards that effort, in a really strategic way, too, there's even companies that do it. I don't know if this is a thing you want to talk about or not, but there are literally companies that are paying for the demographics that they want, by leveraging companies that will get it for them via paid advertising on Facebook. So, you're a media company, and you wanna connect with the millennials of the world, you can literally pay your XYZ company, I'm not gonna name names, to get that exact traffic, and pay them thirty grand a month to do that. So, very eye opening. To me, I started to realize, there is just nothing pure in this world anymore. Literally. Kathleen: So true. Frank: Everything's pay, so it's funny to see that, and it was kind of a big lesson for us to learn, 'cause we were very organic in our growth and promotions and everything, and started to realize that, "Wow, there's a lot of people paying for this." Kathleen: No, we always say marketers ruin everything, and I think it's really true. So, going back one more time, you mentioned you had all these events in different cities, and you were leveraging your personal network. So did you actually have either team members, or brand ambassadors in these different locations? How did you handle covering all that territory? Frank: We didn't. We didn't have people in each market At first, we would literally go around the country, almost like touring, to each city, and as before we did, we'd reach out to anybody we knew in that local market, and connect with them ahead of it. And that worked for a while. Then once we started get the point where we were doing events in a ton of cities, that didn't scale anymore, so we basically created an ambassador network, right? We created a group of people, locally, that were our eyes and ears on the ground, carrying the, at the time, the Tech Cocktail, then TechCo flag, and continued to basically help create the events, get the excitement around them, and get people, obviously, to attend. And so we had some great brand champions in Albuquerque, and Boise, and all these different, Detroit, all these different cities along the way, and that really helped us a ton. At this point, to be able to scale to every market, and have people locally, I mean you need ... first off, you need a Groupon or LivingSocial sized sales force, when they were at their peak, right? When they were literally selling locally to be able to host these events to get them to be covered. And then you also need the other side of it, which is the marketing side, to get people to know about it. So, I think that wasn't, for us, scalable. We hadn't raised any funding to do that, and we didn't raise funding for quite some time, actually. We boot strapped for six years, and eventually took funding, and that's when we were able to scale it a little bit more, but we felt like that approach of having local people on the ground that were full time people, was just not a scalable thing for us. It's just too capital intensive. So we started with, okay, we've got a head of marketing slash events that then would manage of an army, more or less, of our ambassador network. And then that's kind of the approach we took. Some markets worked great, others didn't. I mentioned some of the high, like shining stars, and already some of the cities that did great work, and some, they did great for a while, then they got kind of pulled in, because of life, and work, and everything else, and so we had to continue to try to find their backups, right? And continue to refresh that network, which ultimately was a full time job, because you were constantly trying to find and refresh, people are changing roles, and having babies, and moving, and doing all these things all the time, and so it was difficult to keep a hold of, unless you had one person, or two people, working on that continuously. More or less community development, right? And continue to manage it. Kathleen: Right. And how did you structure that brand ambassador program? Because I would imagine that there has to be something in it for them, otherwise you can't really rely on them. Frank: Well. Kathleen: Any advice there? Frank: No, we tried everything. Every kind of setup you could. Because we didn't know. We were going into it blind, like, "How do we scale this? How do we get people on board, and continue to maintain the heart, right? And in it for the right reasons, right? So we struggled a little bit, to try to figure that out, and we tried a number of different attempts, and ultimately ones that worked the best were ones that just wanted to do it because of the good of the community or whatever. It's hard to find those people all the time. Especially in every market. And the ones that were doing that were now ... things started to be created, new things. So all of a sudden there was startup weeks, and there were startup weekends, and there were XYZ, whatever, meetups. So people that were those doers started to get consumed with all these things, and so we were, in some markets, we were really early, and others we weren't, so more or less we had to figure out, "Okay, what's the carrot that gets these people motivated and want to be a part of it?" And in many cases, the ones that were our best were just in it for the love of their local community and wanted to do the best thing they could. We actually started a pay model, where we literally were paying. "Okay, you go raise the money for it, and keep it. We don't care." We just wanted to do the event. So there was all these different challenges with that program, because we iterated and iterated and iterated, and interestingly, we ultimately, at the end of the day, said, "Okay, do you want to continue to do this kind of thing? We're not doing events anywhere all around the country, like we were, anymore, so if you want to continue to do it, do it, if you don't, that's okay." And it's funny, the ones that were in it for the love of the game, continued, and the rest were like, "We're done," kind of thing. And that was okay. We turned everything to an online competition, with a big culmination event at the end of the year, called Innovate Celebrate, which is coming up here in Boston in October. So things change, we had to continue being flexible. We did this for over a decade. So, if you think about what has happened- Kathleen: Yeah. Frank: There's no iPhone when we started. Like, think about that. Like ... it's nuts. And so, it wasn't that long ago- Kathleen: It's amazing. It's amazing how much it's changed. Frank: Right. Exactly. So- Kathleen: Yeah. Frank: This was like, at the beginning, a place of convening people, and then ultimately, that got created by a lot of different things, you know, with the different social networks, and different mobile apps, and everything else. So, we kind of continue to evolve, and we had to as we continue to grow. Kathleen: Now, let's just talk a little bit about the online media platform because you really built out a publisher site, or at least that's what it looked like from the outside, 'cause I spent some time on the site. There's a lot of great content on there. Can you talk me through ... You mentioned how you started. You started recognizing that people were creating spaces online all the way through to what it became. Frank: We had our own team to begin with, right? To begin with, we were writing all the content. At one point early on, 2010, up to ... we started in '06. So up to 2010, I was even writing up to five articles a day, which ... That was right when we first started doing it full-time. It took a while to be a full-time thing, and then we started ... remember hiring our first editor because I was like, "I need help managing all this." And then that turned into, "Okay, we need more writers." And at a certain point we had 10 or so writers and editors doing their thing and covering a lot of content and producing a ton. But then we realized like, in the media space, it's never enough. Even if you're a very niche publication, you still ... We got kind of pulled into from the offline events piece where it was very sponsorship driven, we got pulled into, "Okay. Now how do we generate revenue online?" Right? Because we're now doing most of our stuff online. And so, yes there's Google advertising, and there's all these different components out there that you can do to kind of generate revenue, affiliate is one of them. All that stuff is very driven by numbers. You need to have an audience - a huge audience to be able to make it work right. Or a very niche audience that is looking for exactly what you're offering. And so our content was so spread across startups, and innovation, and across cities, right? So it was very broad as far as that goes, but very much focused on innovation and tech. And there's a lot of that kind of content. And so, we were trying to really differentiate in the local space, and so, in the local space we were trying to continue to cover these things as the heartbeat in a lot of the local communities. Anyway, long story short, we got pulled into content and content marketing. And so we started to work with different larger brands that we were working on, on the offline stuff in the events, and they were like, "What else do you have? What else can you offer? And how could we reach a bigger audience?" And so we started working with them on some of our first content-marketing pieces, and didn't even know what it was at first ourselves. We were just like, "Well, we're going to just start writing the content, and it'll be brought to you by you, and it's gonna be similar content, but it'll be about this topic or whatever topic we decide, and we can do a whole series." And I still remember some of the first meetings with our team like, "What are we gonna do? How much are we charging?" But we figured it out, right? So we figured out what we should do, what's kind of the going rate, and ultimately, we were able to work with a number of bigger advertisers that we already worked with on events, and continue to extend that relationship online. And it turned into yearly contracts. In some cases it started as like, "Okay, here's a 10-article series for X amount." And now it's like, "Okay, now we're going to do a full year of content about this." We'll kind of space it out. And at one point, I think we had one that was like 54 articles. I'm like, "Wow. That's amazing. That's a really long deal." So, it was exciting and that's kind of the direction we ended up and ended up going, and we learned a lot about that along the way. But what we learned also is that, even with that, you're continually under this gun of how do we show metrics? So we had to find a metrics tools that showed not just like page views, engagement, and a lot more ... the answer if you're not CNN.com or something like that, right? Like we were trying to compete in so much space with them, as well as even some of the social networks are doing similar things than ... Basically, we were competing with everyone for attention, right? And so, but this was very niche kind of content. So more or less, it was a game where we always had to get bigger and grow and grow and grow, and we leveraged a lot of tools. Facebook was one of them. Twitter was one of them to begin with. I think one of the hidden gems out there is Flipboard. I don't know if you're familiar with it. If you're doing content, you should be on Flipboard because it can really engage a lot more users that don't even ... you may not even realize they're out there. Everyone's on their phone all the time and they offer really great interface to flip almost like an RSS reader, but a beautiful interface. Kathleen: Yeah. Frank: There's a lot of tools like that, that are out there that we kind of continue had to evolve and find because as you continue to grow, you always are trying to find more eyeballs, more or less, and as you try to compete with the larger folks out there. Kathleen: So you talked about how you were going to be able to demonstrate value to your sponsors and your advertisers. Frank: Yes. Kathleen: And kind of the different metrics that are out there to measure that, and I'm curious, when you would enter into conversations with prospective sponsor advertisers, what did those conversations revolve around in terms of, hey, this will be a successful partnership if what, for them? Is it if we get X number of leads, or was it engagement, or was it page views? What were those companies looking for from you? Frank: It was a mix, and that's we, we worked kind of backwards. So based on goals. So a brand may want to just have a great series of content out there about personal branding, right? And they wanted that because it was in line with the campaign that the were doing. Right? And so we worked backwards, like how do we create great content that fits our audience, that resonates well, is going to get great engagement? And we created a whole content calendar around how that would work. And then that's what we would present. Like, "Okay. This is what we're gonna do. This is what we think's gonna work. And it's gonna tie back to your campaign which is all about personal branding because that's your latest campaign or whatever." And that's just an example, but you get the idea. So then in the bottom of it, we would say, "Okay. This is brought to you by XYZ personal branding, blah, blah, blah, and link back if you want more information." So obviously those links were important to the brands, but at the end of the day in many ways, the minute that they're reading the content, and if there's some way that ... Sometimes we would incorporate the brand that were actually the sponsor of that content, and a lot of times you wouldn't, though. It just felt like we didn't need to, right, because they were already included in this brought-to-you-by kind of capacity. So, it just depended on what they were trying to do. We didn't love doing the content marketing that was to drive leads to a lead-gen form kind of thing like that as much. It was harder to do. Harder to measure. The audience that we were getting weren't sure if they were going to do that or not. It depended, you know. And we didn't want to be held to like, "Okay. We need to get XYZ brand to get this many signups," right? Or whatever. That made my heart race just even talking about it, like, I don't want to. Because ultimately, the minute we put that out there, we wrote that content for them about that specific thing or about that whatever it was, we already wrote the kind of the advertisement content for them in some ways. It wasn't. I mean, it was great content regardless, but we wrote almost like the advertisement piece if you were looking at it in line with like, "We're going to create a commercial," right? Well, the commercial is the content at this point. And we already created that for them which has value. So that's where, as a smaller, you know when I say smaller, we still had millions of readers, but smaller compared to the TechCrunches of the world or maybe CNN Money, or I don't know what their traffic is, but ... or Box. That's a good example, right? Verge. But they've also raised millions of dollars, like hundreds of millions of dollars. We did not. We raised two and a half. And so more or less, we were trying to compete in that same space, and the way to work in that space was more or less to add as much value. So we were trying to create the content, and then offer them the content to use. Like, if they wanted to use the content on their own site, they could feel free. We don't care. It's great. So we were almost like, in some ways, a content agency for them, and doing that allowed them to then use it in other ways. It tied in with the campaign that they had. They were getting online traffic and awareness from just being out there on Tech.co at the time, and then more or less, it was a better offering than a lot of the other folks were offering. Kathleen: Now that's really interesting. So, you had these partnerships, and it sounds like what you were selling is you creating the content for them and then publishing it, but also giving it to them to do what they wanted. Were there cases where you had sponsors or advertisers who came and said, "We want to do a five article series, but we want to create the content and give it to you for publication?" Frank: We have, and we worked with them on that. And we would actually have obviously final editorial approval on everything on what it would look like, but in that situation, that was even difficult to us, if they were good writers, and had great content. A lot of them did. Frank: So, the tough part of that was when they didn't have great content. And that- Kathleen: That's why I'm asking. Frank: Now we had an awkward conversation to have, because you're like, "Well, this isn't gonna necessarily fit for our audience because the ... you know." So you kind of have to be up front and say, "Okay. We're going to have to rework this." And we did, and that was the only way we could get it published on our site 'cause it wouldn't make sense ... Not to mention, we were really focused on making sure everything that was on Tech.co was very authentic in voice, and didn't rub our audience the wrong way, because our audience was our gold, right? That was what we had, and had to offer. And so, yes they were paying for the content, but they also were paying for this very engaged audience globally. So it was a mix, right? So they were getting a little bit of, almost like a value-add for being able to leverage the content in other ways as well. Kathleen: Now did you have, for the non-sponsored content portion of your site, did you have outside contributors who wrote for you, or was it all staff writers? Frank: Yeah. When we started with a paid staff, we realized that that was really hard to scale faster and grow. We got to the point where like, okay, now we've got to like ... How do we grow from here to here? How do we do that quickly? And so what we did, we started our contributor network which is similar to our ambassador network, but it was online, and it was writers. And so, we ... I don't know if you want to call it a mistake or whatever, we opened it up very quickly, and said, okay. We're going to put it out there, and got thousands of people to apply. We had so many writers, we didn't know what to do with them. And so then we had to reign it back in, and I think at the end of it, they don't have a contributor network anymore at TechCo because this is a lot to manage. Like now you've got a whole group of people that you're managing, and they're constantly asking about, "When is this going to get published," and "How is that going to go?" And you're going back and forth. So we had a whole team that managed that component of it. We had about a hundred and something writers at the end which were really solid and we could kind of depend on. And it would also go in spurts, kind of similar to what I was saying with the ambassador program. Some would write for a long time, and then all of a sudden, life happens. You know? And now they're like, "Well. I gotta take a break for a second." But these were all unpaid writers. They were doing it for the love of the game, to have bylines out there, and to be able to contribute. Some were local focused, some were national focused, some were focused on just the thing that they're really good at, and some were even about brand marketing and things like that. It just depended on what they were interested or excited about. And so, we accept a lot of contributors, but one of the things we had to watch out for is fake people, actually. We had a fake people problem, and I think the Internet does. It's still, in this day and age there are ... I don't know how many times you get these, but I get some random Facebook friends lately, and they're not real. You can go back and trace it. They're using someone else's picture. We've had people use other peoples' pictures. We've had people ... You know there was a lot of that kind of stuff happening, and we basically had to really hone that network into, "Okay. We're going to get on a Skype call with you, and find out if you're real." And we're going to have to pass that test, and then work with them to make sure that these are all real. And that was a lesson learned, and obviously we quickly removed any of the content that we found was not real. Kathleen: Yeah. It's interesting. We're in the early days of creating a contributor program, and definitely learning as we go. We have some contributors who are just rock stars. They're great writers. They're super reliable. And then we have others who are really smart but maybe take more handholding to get their articles to the point where they're ready for publication. And so, I've been working with my head of editorial content on how do we ... Let's look at the value we're getting vs. the time we're putting in, because in some cases it's just not worth it. Frank: Right. So the company that acquired TechCo, they did that analysis. The company's called MBF Global. Great company out in the UK. If you haven't heard of them, they're growing like crazy. And more or less, they were trying to build this media arm, and that's why they acquired TechCo. But they did that analysis, and they're like, well, it doesn't make sense. Right? We're going to be going in this direction, and we know what direction we're going to go in. It was a staff of people managing that from our side. We looked at it, as a funded company, and our goal is growth, right? Continued growth. And the best way to do that in the most capital-sensitive way, was to do it this way, right, and have these unpaid contributors that we're managing vs. having ... If we had to pay 100 contributors to write for us, that was just not the move to do. And so, it just made sense. And so I think, it just depends on your situation. If you have the time and effort, and you want to be able to do that, manage that group, then it makes sense. And if your goals are growth. But if it's a specific voice ... 'cause you're going to have now a lot of different voices, and a lot of different opinions about what should be going out and what shouldn't. And we even had some that we had to kind of pull back because they were too critical about certain companies we liked, or brands that we ... These are not all op eds. Now in this day and age, with political stuff, we're like, "Whoa. We can't, we're gonna have to keep an eye on that stuff as well." So it does open up just a Pandora's box of things you need to watch, watch out for, man. Kathleen: Yeah. Now you mentioned that your kind of North Star was growth, and as a media company, I know I'm not telling you anything you don't know. Obviously growth is synonymous with audience size, subscriber base, like especially owned audience. Can you talk a little bit about what some of the most effective levers were for subscriber growth for you guys? Frank: Yeah. To begin with events, right? We were able to get folks coming to something and they were super engaged in their local community. They were super engaged with our brand. They were an army of people locally that loved, at the time, Tech Cocktail, and then TechCo, and they would come out anytime we shined the Tech Cocktail symbol up there like the bat symbol, right, whatever, right? We started offering a number of different things that would grow us that subscriber base. Everything from reports ... We had some of the first ever reports about accelerators, we ranked the startup accelerators out there, and that was kind of first-to-market thing. Now you'll see like Forbes, and some of these others, already doing that. It's been almost six, seven years now, or maybe even longer since we first put our first one out there. And so you're seeing a lot more folks do that, so that doesn't necessarily make for a great report anymore. But as we started seeing folks do that, we started saying, "Okay, what other resources can we offer?" And so we started really trying to focus on online resources that offered value outside of just the regular articles that we were putting out. And then obviously, we traded the resource for their email address, and grew our audience. So we did a lot. That was kind of our growth strategy after the events, because the events became really capital intensive and time intensive, and not able to scale. There's only 365 days a year. We can only do 365 events and keep our sanity. Yes, you could do multiple events on multiple days. We did it. It was insane. But I wouldn't recommend that, especially if you only have a core team of ... a smaller core team. So I just think that, in this day and age, if you do the online kind of resource play and offer something of value, you can actually grow an audience that way. I would even, today, say with the platforms that are out there, things like Instagram are a great place to start. In some cases, you don't even need a website. It's crazy these days. You could literally start with an Instagram account with a "subscribe" link in your bio, or something like that, and grow that way. You may not get as much traction. It depends on how good you are at Instagram. But ultimately ... 'Cause it's not like you're off every photo. You're like, "Oh! That's resource." No, it's not. It's just a picture. So, it may be hard to get people to go back. So, that's where it's like at the end of the day, if we could create something that was valuable to someone, so the exchange is a one-to-one? You know, information for your email? That's the best way to do it, in my opinion. Some other things? Events. Obviously, if you can do them in a larger scale. We did some large things in DC with ... I don't know if you remember Digital Capital Week. We did that festival for three years with iStrategy Labs. And that grew ... You know, we had 10,000 attendees. So, that grew an audience locally of support, that knew about us, and what we were up to, and follow ... Some of them, you know, joined in the file, the content that we were putting out after that? So, that was another kind of strategy. And then, I think, just in general it was a ... We were focused on doing things that would create a sharable moment, or a way that we could engage somebody later with some kind of a resource. I mean, really, that's what we were focused on at the end. And that the strategy, obviously, I'm not with TechCo anymore. I should mention that early. I've transitioned out. So, their strategy now, I don't know what it is, but it's different. And that's totally fine. So, more or less, I'm speaking from when I was with TechCo up until we sold the company in December of 2017. So. From TechCo to Established Kathleen: Now, you mentioned earlier that these days you might not even need a website to be successful. So, you've sold TechCo. You've now started Established, where you're advising bigger brands on how to leverage this media, or publishing approach, in order to grow. If you were to try to start this all over again today, in the world we live in right now, which is really different- Frank: Critical. Kathleen: ... how would you do it? And like, what do you tell your clients? I'm curious. 'Cause it is, it's a completely different game these days. Frank: It is! I mean, it's a lot harder, in my opinion. It's harder and easier, if that makes sense. It's harder because there's ... Back when we started, there wasn't as much noise. Now, there's so much. Like, there is so much content. I mean, not just talking about our kind of content, I'm talking about like you have to choose between Netflix and Amazon, and all these different producers. HBO has ... I mean, there's so much content. And we only have the ... We have the same amount of time. So, it's just really ... That's, I think, the struggle that we have now is, from 10 to 12 years ago, there wasn't as much. You couldn't get things streamed to your phone. And so, you're competing with everything now. And so, I think, that's the challenge. The benefit is, from now, is that there are tools that can help. There's a lot more tools that can help you connect with people. Everything from ... Like I mentioned, Instagram's a big one. I mean, I just started a Podcast as well. It's called, Somewhat Frank. I brought back my old blog, which was called, Somewhat Frank, and repurposed it as now the Podcast, Somewhere Frank, because my name's Frank. And I thought it was clever. Kathleen: I like it. Frank: And I can be somewhat Frank on that, right? So, anyway, long story short, you know, without it, I didn't start a site right away. I just started Instagram, starting growing an Instagram account, leveraged that Instagram for a while. And then now, I've got a site. It's kind of that one-two punch after you've got a little bit of an audience. And then, the other thing is we're working with different groups. Like we're working with a group down in Tampa that has an innovation hub, and we helped them with a launch recently. And it's called, Embark Collective. And we're helping them with content strategy and growth, and whatnot. And kind of what we started talking about at the beginning is you need an audience. So, you need to build your own audience, because you can't rely on the local media, or the national media, or whatever, to tell your story for you. You have to tell it yourself. I mean, that's the whole thing. If you create an audience, you can talk, you don't worry about what The New York Time is covering, right? 'Cause you've got this really engaged audience that is already following along for the journey. And so, that's what ... You know, that's the approach we kind of take. That's the approach we're taking with Embark Collective, and we're doing it in a way that's the voice that they wanted to get out there, which is very founder led, versus talking about ourselves, right? So, it's a little bit- Kathleen: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Frank: ... a trickier thing with that kind of a lead. Especially with a new thing, right? When you have a new thing, you kind of need to tell people what it is. I mean, we're doing it in a way that's like through others can be more challenging. So, I think that is the challenge now. It's doing it in the right way, and kind of sharing that message. Frank: So, to tell ... You know, I guess the bottom line is there's still these great platforms that allow you to grow, and we're continuing to watch that. There are ... I mean, if you really wanted to jumpstart it ... And I've even heard some of the great marketers out there tell people to do this ... You can buy an audience. It's nothing that we did at TechCo, but you can. You can get a jumpstart with buying ... whether it be Twitter handles, or Instagrams, or Facebook, or even websites, right? 'Cause now you've got an audience that's already going to a website. So, those are other options. Like I said, TechCo was very organic. We just grew it from the ground up with events, and then online. So, that's where I'm more comfortable with, and understand better. Frank: Another example would be ... Here, I'm in Las Vegas. It looks like I'm in a locker room. I'm not. I have little lockers here with our secret things. No, we don't have anything over here. Kathleen: I know I'm dying to know what's in those lockers now. Frank: Yeah. So, basically, it's just where we put like things we used to do at events and stuff. But that's not really locker. Anyway, yeah. In Las Vegas, there ... we moved out here because of the Downtown Project. And so, one of the things that we start working on with them, Downtown Project, was this project by the CEO of Zappos Tony Hsieh. He started this 40-million-dollar project, Invest in Downtown. And, more or less, we started bringing people out every month. And it was more or less like a little summit. And we'd bring people out, and show them around, as the backdrop being downtown, but the ultimate payoff was that you were actually meeting great people. And so, as an opportunity to kind of connect, but that turned into, well, you also learned about the downtown. So, that is one kind of ... If you're doing things locally, and you're trying to get people excited about what's happening in your local area, that's one example of the way to do it. It's expensive and very timely, or time intensive. Kathleen: Consuming? Frank: Yeah, consuming. Consuming because you're now doing, you know, you're doing VIP kind of treatment for a lot of different folks that are coming in from all over, and you're the tie touch. So, I wouldn't recommend that to everyone, unless you ... Or they wanna do a lot of that. So, I think it just depends on what your goals are, and what you're trying to do. But I do think ... I guess you asked me would I start a media company today? I don't think so. There's just so much right now. I think there's so many other things you could do that would ultimately have to do similar things to a media company, and you'd still get that ... But you actually have a little bit different product, right? So, I love media. I've been doing it for a long time. I used to build the media sites at Tribune, so I've got a huge background in media, and as well at AOL, personalized news, and whatnot. So, I love media and news. I just think it's ... There's so much of it right now, I think that it's hard ... It's a lot harder to break in. Kathleen: Yeah. Well, so many interesting insights, and I feel like you've been in the media industry during a fascinating time, because it really has changed so much over these years. You know, here on this podcast, we talk a lot about inbound marketing, which at its heart is really just about using content to organically draw your audience in, which is kind of what you talked about in the beginning between events and some of the original content you were creating. Kathleen's Two Questions Kathleen: As somebody who's been in the space for a while, I'm curious ... Company or individual, I always like to ask this question: Who do you think is doing inbound marketing really well right now? Frank: Yeah. And I ... While you were saying that, I was thinking about other media brands that have done it really well recently. So, I'm gonna answer that question, and then I'm gonna answer your question. So, one of the brands that has done an amazing job, and has gotten a lot of traction through influencers, and is doing content marketing well, is Cheddar? So, if you're familiar with Cheddar. They went kind of a online component, but now they're on like Sling and other places. So they worked on distribution. And I think that's still really ... Any company, whether it be a start-up in the media space or any space, distribution is still like the most under-appreciated/thought of thing. Really. I mean, distribution is such a big deal. And so, the founder came from kind of a background of HuffPost and some others ... media sites, and had relationships. So, built great relationships, and leveraged them to build, what is now Cheddar. I think a lot of folks look at that and like, "Wow! That's just magic." It's not. It's relationships. At the end of the day, everything we do is relationship-based, and so I think a lot of that, he's done a really great job with platform, and then ultimately turned to relations. So, they're doing a great job, and they're on your television set, they're on your phone, they're on all the different social channels, and they're able to leverage media. So, if I was to start a media company, I'd wanna start something more like what he did, which is video-based, and then like growing it versus typing content and all that kind of thing. So, that's that whole answer to that question. But to your question about who's doing a good job? I may get a lot of newsletters. Obviously, Gary Vee is a leader in the space. I'm a big fan of his, for a long time. Brian Solis. I like his stuff as well. But, ultimately, I think I only ... I mean, everybody gets so many newsletters. One of the newsletters that I say and believe continuously is this Fortune Term Sheet? I just couldn't think of the name of it recently. I was like, "What's the name of that? The Fortune one." It's basically startup news and updates about investments, things that are ... I'm kind of looking towards, "Okay, how do I continue to invest in startups? How do I continue to grow our investor community to grow into our startup of the year stuff that we're doing to continue to invest in those great companies all over? 'Cause there are great companies all over the country and world, that aren't finding the funding that they need. So, because of that, I'm more focused on that kind of content lately. And so, I've been really focused on this Fortune Term Sheet email that goes around every day, actually. So it's a daily email which, I mean, we all get a lot of emails. That's the one that I continue to read continuously? Kathleen: And what makes it so great? What is it about that that you like? Frank: It takes time. It's got a great roundup. It used to be ... It's kind of a space that, like a TechCrunch, Crunchbase should be in, or I don't know if they do have a newsletter. I should probably look. But it's that, more or less, updates about things that have happened in the space. So like, "This company just got funded by this," or, "This just happened here," or that, you know, so it's kind of that quick rundown, and it's bulleted, so it's not like I have to read like a ton. And it saves me time about everything that's happened in the kind of venture space. And, in some ways, not just venture space, 'cause it is Fortune. They're looking at bigger companies as well. So, see. So, that's one that I read a lot. I'm trying to think if there's any others that do a really good job. Mine are so focused more on startup piece stuff. Oh, one of- Kathleen: Yeah, but that's great. I love hearing about examples outside of marketing. Frank: Well, here's one that's not. And it's kind of just my own ... Like I guess it would be called like just ... I don't consider myself an auto enthusiast. I just like looking at cool things. I used to love Jetsetter. So, I used to love the newsletter they sent out? 'Cause it was like a vacation. You'd like see this amazing resort, and the pictures. And it was in this beautiful place, and you could take a second, look at that. And I would save those. It's just changed to a different model, slightly. They don't have the same beautiful emails anymore. And they were, I think, acquired as well, right? So, they kind of changed a little bit. But they, for a long time, were like, "Wow! This is my daily vacation from whatever I'm doing. I'm gonna look at this Jetsetter email, and think about, "Wow! Wouldn't it be great if I went to this, you know, Bora Bora- Kathleen: Right. Frank: ... this beautiful place?"" Kathleen: If I was sitting on the beach with a piña colada right there, right now. Frank: Right, right. And they were offering affordable ways to do that, right? They were selling the dream. Frank: One that's similar to that, and I'm not a car enthusiast, but I get this new one called, Bring a Trailer. And it's basically an auction site for automobiles. Like I love looking at old like FJ Cruisers, which are like the Toyota big trucks and whatever. And like they have Porches. You know, like they have tons of stuff on there. It's my daily escape from everything that's like the chaos that's happening in my world. And I just take a look at those pretty daily to see what's going on. Frank: So, those are the ... I don't- Kathleen: Oh, I'm gonna have to tell my husband about that, because he loves looking for old Willys Jeep, and- Frank: There you go! Kathleen: ... old, like classic pick-up trucks. Frank: Right. Kathleen: So. Frank: Right, yeah. So, you could find that on that site. You can set a little alert, and they'll send you an email when that happens. So, it's a little bit more on the product side but, at the same time, it's kind of a guilty pleasure, if I have one. Kathleen: Yeah, yeah. Frank: So, you know, you're living in Las Vegas- Kathleen: No, that's great. Frank: You really can't have any vices if you live here, so that's mine. I look at, I guess they'd be auto porn. I don't know what that is, but I get right into it. Yeah. Yeah. Kathleen: That's awesome. Well, I'm definitely gonna check that out. Kathleen: Now, the second question is, you know, you're somebody who's in the world of marketing. With digital changing so much all the time, how do you stay up-to-date? How do you educate yourself? Frank: Yeah. Well, I read a ton. So, I mentioned Flipboard. I have that on my phone, and I'm on there a lot. And to the point of like ... I mean you're just ... Like I just flip, flip, flip, and try to keep up with everything. And I have different channels set up about different components of marketing or technology, or business, or whatever. And sports even, 'cause I'm the biggest sports fan. Go, Cubs. But the other thing I do is I've a friend that worked in ... to try to keep up to speed there as well. I used to attend a lot of events. Once I started hosting a ton of events, you started finding yourself not going to as many events. But then you become like, "Well, I'm disconnected from all the events. Why is that?" So, I started more recently going to more things. Like we were in our group together. Mindshare, right? So, that was me getting out and trying to do more event-related things to meet other folks in the industry, or we would never connect like this, if I hadn't been in that. So, I think that's my new approach for that. There's other events that are kind of more intimate that I've been trying to kind of get to. But again, I'm not doing as much of that, and so it's more or less, you know ... Daily, it's just like keeping up with the updates that are happening. And, obviously, the more high-test stuff is actually getting out and connecting with people. Kathleen: Yeah. It's definitely like drinking from a fire hose, right? Frank: It is, but like you know HubSpot does their big conference INBOUND every year. It just happened a little bit ago. That's a great opportunity for trying to connect with folks that are doing it, doing inbound marketing, and things like that. There's others, right? And there's niches too. So like, I just came back from Denver Startup Week. I gave a fireside chat with somebody out there, but also there was a summit for this group we're part of called, The Startup Champion Network, so SCN. And so, they kind of piggy-backed on each other, and that was an opportunity to connect with more people that were there, and vice versa. So, I try to make those kind of more strategic opportunities, right, that make sense. And you can continue to really refresh and re-up what your learnings are from those different opportunities. Kathleen: Great. Frank: Okay. Kathleen: Well, I have like a million more questions I could ask, but I know you have a life, and so I'll let you get back to it. But if somebody wants to learn more about what you're doing, or has a question about what you talked about here today, what's the best place for them to find you online? Frank: Yeah, sure. I'm just at Frank Gruber. So, Frank rhymes ... Or Gruber rhymes with Uber, dot me. And you can actually just ... I think it has my email on there, but frank@ ... Can I say that on this? Or is this gonna get- Kathleen: Sure, yeah. Go for it. Frank: All right. So, yeah, just ... My email address is pretty easy. It's frank@est.us so- Kathleen: E-S-T dot us? Frank: Yeah. US. Kathleen: Okay, great. I'll put- Frank: You're gonna get E-S-T dot us. Kathleen: ... all those things in the show notes. Frank: Yeah, that's great. So, yeah. I'm just gonna get a flood of emails now, right? Kathleen: Awesome. Well, you'll probably get a few from me, asking all the other questions- Frank: Okay. Kathleen: ... I didn't get a chanced to ask today. Frank: Good. Kathleen: But no, this was great, and really informative, and- Frank: Great. Kathleen: ... I think for any brand that's thinking of becoming a media company, there were so many good tidbits in there about, you know, good ways to grow, and maybe not such good ways to grow? Frank: Right. Kathleen: So, I really appreciate the time you spent. Frank: Well, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Kathleen: Yeah. And if you're listening, and you found value in this interview, please, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or the platform of your choice. Kathleen: And if you know somebody who's doing kick-ass inbound marketing, tweet me at WorkMommyWork because I would love to interview them. Frank: Great. Thanks so much, Kathleen. Kathleen: That's it for this week. Thanks, Frank.

Today we get to know Jen Consalvo of TechCo Media. Tech.Co (formerly Tech Cocktail) is a vibrant media, community and events organization for creatives, entrepreneurs, and technology enthusiasts. This episode is powered by the KIA Niro, https://www.kia.com/us/en/vehicle/niro/2017 A Smarter Kind of Crossover. Connect with us at womenintechshow.com. Tweet @womenintechshow and @EspreeDevora https://tech.co/ http://twitter.com/womenintechshow https://twitter.com/espreedevora

In this thirteenth episode of I Live In Dallas Radio, co-hosted by myself and Jason Channell, we interview Dallas Startup Week co-organizers Fiona Schlachter, Jeff Corkran, Erin O'Brien, and Paulomi (Polo) Patel, in order to get the 411 on the entrepreneurship talks happening the week of March 2nd through the 6th. Dallas Startup Week marks a sort of tipping point in the explosion in Dallas' startup scene, events, and success stories within the last five - seven years. In this podcast, we dive into some theories for this explosion, and name names on some of the current and past "movers and shakers" of the Dallas startup community. Listen to see if your startup gets a mention. What is Dallas Startup Week? According to their website, Dallas Startup Week, which is apart of Startup Weekâ„¢ at large, is "A five day celebration of your community. [Dallas Startup Week is] a new type of conference that builds momentum and opportunity around entrepreneurship, led by entrepreneurs and hosted in the entrepreneurial spaces you love. Dallas Startup Week is a reflection of your hard work and your community's unique entrepreneurial identity." Group Interview We met up with Dallas Startup Week (DSW15) co-organizers in a conference room at the Mercantile, a beautiful and historic downtown Dallas luxury apartment complex converted from a Cold War era commercial bank building. Located at 1800 Main Street, this is the big clock building that's often recognized in the downtown skyline. Appropriately, many of DSW's events will be held in downtown Dallas. Listen as we talk about: A handful of Dallas Startup Week speakers and some of the most interesting topics being presented. What makes Dallas different from startup epicenters like San Francisco, and in some ways better. Some of the hottest Dallas-based, and recently launched in Dallas, startups right now including: RISE, 2PointB, and Postmates. A mini history discourse on coworking spaces, Dallas' first coworking space, and three hot spaces right now: Fort Work, The Foundry, and The Kaleidoscope for Her. In the second half of the podcast, we take a deep dive into some of the psychological aspects of the entrepreneur's journey. We debunk some of the myths of being an entrepreneur like the overnight success perception from an outsider's point of view. We also cover why it's important to attend regular and special events like Dallas Startup Week in order to surround yourself with motivational and like-minded people. Keep listening to learn about: How Dallas Startup Week is not just for technology-only based startups, but includes talks from: successful Nammi [Food] Truck owners Teena Nguyen and Gary Torres, legendary  restaurateur Phil Romano, fashion mogul  Chris Hite (J. Hilburn), brewery owner Michael Peticolas (Peticolas Brewing Company), and many more. How some Dallas startup entrepreneurs are surviving  without cars by using using DART, living downtown, and coworking locally. How would-be entrepreneurs can get plugged into the Dallas startup community through ongoing monthly events and meetups (listen to get the names). How large companies like Sabre, Neiman Marcus, and others are participating in DSW15 by sharing insights from their innovation departments. For more info, and to see more topics and speakers, register and make your schedule at www.DSW15.com. Follow the hashtag: #DSW15 and interact on Facebook.com/DallasStartupWeek. Related posts: Common Desk Offers Startups and Freelancers an Uncommon Alternative to Working Remote – ILID Radio #12 Tech Cocktail’s Dallas Mixer & Startup Showcase One Couch at a Time Doc Film Maker Alexandra Liss Shares Her Story at Texas Theater – ILID Radio #11

Are you searching for ways to bring more happiness into your life?  Would you like a free resource that will guide you, for an entire year, to help you accomplish this? I had the opportunity to interview PositivePsychopedia.com's Kira Newman to talk about her new experiment, called the "Year of Happy." As Kira puts it on her site:  Positive psychology, the science of happiness, is learning new things every day about how to bring more positive emotions and meaning to our lives. But the trick is sorting through the mess of sensational media headlines and dry academic papers and applying those lessons – can we do it? In this course, each month of 2015 will focus on one skill or activity proven to make us happier, like optimism, relationships, meaning, and goals (see below). As we practice new life habits, we'll also be learning through readings, videos, and discussions." Kira is a digital journalist who has published over 1,300 articles on sites like The Huffington Post and Tech Cocktail. One of her earlier courses, The Honesty Experiment, was featured on Psychology Today and attracted participants from around the world. If you're searching for more happiness, you'll want to make sure you catch this interview!

We attended Tech Cocktail's Celebrate Conference in Downtown Las Vegas and put together an absolutely killer episode with the very best highlights of the event. The overarching theme is all about building strong startup communities. We talk to a couple ke Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scheduled Guests: Frank Gruber talks about his new start up book, Startup Mixology from his Tech Cocktail experience. Jay DesMarteau reveals TD Bank's survey of small business owners likes and dislikes. Andy Feit shows how to protect your email from getting hacked. John Oecshle demonstrates the key way to retain customers. Sponsored by Sage and Nextiva.

If you were in the Pittsburgh area last week did you make it to the Tech Cocktail event? Join us live to talk about the companies and event! We're talking TV apps from @TechCocktail Pittsburgh - @edenrokey's Max My TV on slate now. http:// Talking about @alphalab Gear company "lifeshel" we met last week at #techcocktailpgh h @Sorgatron is professing his tech love of @DiamondKinetics who he met at @TechCocktail Pittsburgh. Check us out http://live.sorgatronmedia.com @rebelliousflaw loving the @TailoredFitCo site. Another @TechCocktail showcase discussion! http:/ @flikbakapp getting some tech love from @Sorgatron from the @TechCocktail pittsburgh event http We're liking the @getemplified concept from @TechCocktail Pittsburgh. But, their social media presence leaves us with questions. Exploring @TagalongTour whom we learned about at @TechCocktail Pittsburgh. Talking about @AthleteTrax. We also met them at the @TechCocktail Pittsburgh event and had some great discussion. Check out the rest of our @TechCocktail Pittsburgh thoughts on the @sorgatronmedia site. @MadMike4883's awesome thing of the week is the cool NYC transit interactive map system. @chilla discussing Chrome remote desktop (as @Sorgatron signs up now). http://live.sorgatronmedia.com @Sorgatron is taking over @MadMike4883's computer via Google Hangout. It's pretty cool and scary at the same time. ht @Sorgatron has found the Chrome Remote Desktop app on Google Play for those who are interested. Google voice is going to "smoosh" in with hangout. Is it going to affect how you use it? We'll keep tabs and let you know! Apple Maps has found the Loch Ness Monster? Thanks to @techburgh for the lead. Mac OS opens betas to the public. You don't have to be a developer. http Alcohol powder brings new options to life. #AlcoholSalad

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Croncast - 2006-07-07.mp3 Show: #246 Length: 36:58 Size: 25.4 mb Format: mp3 Betsy and her husband Kris July 07, 2006 Betsy will have gifts from Maggies guacamole love All she says is momma Betsy and Maggie had lunch with me The guacamole caked her dress Betsy fed her some more guacamole at home Eating food off the floor, she has standards Off setting the guacamole with cheese If they sold milk at garage sales My jeans were $80 When you're listening to this I will be wearing the same clothes What you and your wife do is cute Jeans were not that much money for ones that fit right Knock-off ketchup will set Kris off Betsy says I spend too much money on stuff "Do you know how many pairs of jeans I could have bought you for $80 at Goodwill?" Betsy is trying for the senior discount Garage sale booty The secret to Betsy shopping speeds Possible fake Coach purse Hanging at the Tech Cockatil mixer Being able to buy things makes me feel good It's the nicest gift besides giving her grand-children Doctor asks if Betsy and I are related . . . nice Our fly farm and my fly paper business More anniversary talk Slowsky is coming home!!!

Croncast - 2006-07-07.mp3 Show: #246 Length: 36:58 Size: 25.4 mb Format: mp3 Betsy and her husband Kris July 07, 2006 Betsy will have gifts from Maggies guacamole love All she says is momma Betsy and Maggie had lunch with me The guacamole caked her dress Betsy fed her some more guacamole at home Eating food off the floor, she has standards Off setting the guacamole with cheese If they sold milk at garage sales My jeans were $80 When you're listening to this I will be wearing the same clothes What you and your wife do is cute Jeans were not that much money for ones that fit right Knock-off ketchup will set Kris off Betsy says I spend too much money on stuff "Do you know how many pairs of jeans I could have bought you for $80 at Goodwill?" Betsy is trying for the senior discount Garage sale booty The secret to Betsy shopping speeds Possible fake Coach purse Hanging at the Tech Cockatil mixer Being able to buy things makes me feel good It's the nicest gift besides giving her grand-children Doctor asks if Betsy and I are related . . . nice Our fly farm and my fly paper business More anniversary talk Slowsky is coming home!!!

Croncast - 2006-07-07.mp3 Show: #246 Length: 36:58 Size: 25.4 mb Format: mp3 Betsy and her husband Kris July 07, 2006 Betsy will have gifts from Maggies guacamole love All she says is momma Betsy and Maggie had lunch with me The guacamole caked her dress Betsy fed her some more guacamole at home Eating food off the floor, she has standards Off setting the guacamole with cheese If they sold milk at garage sales My jeans were $80 When you're listening to this I will be wearing the same clothes What you and your wife do is cute Jeans were not that much money for ones that fit right Knock-off ketchup will set Kris off Betsy says I spend too much money on stuff "Do you know how many pairs of jeans I could have bought you for $80 at Goodwill?" Betsy is trying for the senior discount Garage sale booty The secret to Betsy shopping speeds Possible fake Coach purse Hanging at the Tech Cockatil mixer Being able to buy things makes me feel good It's the nicest gift besides giving her grand-children Doctor asks if Betsy and I are related . . . nice Our fly farm and my fly paper business More anniversary talk Slowsky is coming home!!!

Croncast - 2006-07-07.mp3 Show: #246 Length: 36:58 Size: 25.4 mb Format: mp3 Betsy and her husband Kris July 07, 2006 Betsy will have gifts from Maggies guacamole love All she says is momma Betsy and Maggie had lunch with me The guacamole caked her dress Betsy fed her some more guacamole at home Eating food off the floor, she has standards Off setting the guacamole with cheese If they sold milk at garage sales My jeans were $80 When you're listening to this I will be wearing the same clothes What you and your wife do is cute Jeans were not that much money for ones that fit right Knock-off ketchup will set Kris off Betsy says I spend too much money on stuff "Do you know how many pairs of jeans I could have bought you for $80 at Goodwill?" Betsy is trying for the senior discount Garage sale booty The secret to Betsy shopping speeds Possible fake Coach purse Hanging at the Tech Cockatil mixer Being able to buy things makes me feel good It's the nicest gift besides giving her grand-children Doctor asks if Betsy and I are related . . . nice Our fly farm and my fly paper business More anniversary talk Slowsky is coming home!!!

Croncast - 2006-07-07.mp3 Show: #246 Length: 36:58 Size: 25.4 mb Format: mp3 Betsy and her husband Kris July 07, 2006 Betsy will have gifts from Maggies guacamole love All she says is momma Betsy and Maggie had lunch with me The guacamole caked her dress Betsy fed her some more guacamole at home Eating food off the floor, she has standards Off setting the guacamole with cheese If they sold milk at garage sales My jeans were $80 When you're listening to this I will be wearing the same clothes What you and your wife do is cute Jeans were not that much money for ones that fit right Knock-off ketchup will set Kris off Betsy says I spend too much money on stuff "Do you know how many pairs of jeans I could have bought you for $80 at Goodwill?" Betsy is trying for the senior discount Garage sale booty The secret to Betsy shopping speeds Possible fake Coach purse Hanging at the Tech Cockatil mixer Being able to buy things makes me feel good It's the nicest gift besides giving her grand-children Doctor asks if Betsy and I are related . . . nice Our fly farm and my fly paper business More anniversary talk Slowsky is coming home!!!

Croncast - 2006-07-07.mp3 Show: #246 Length: 36:58 Size: 25.4 mb Format: mp3 Betsy and her husband Kris July 07, 2006 Betsy will have gifts from Maggies guacamole love All she says is momma Betsy and Maggie had lunch with me The guacamole caked her dress Betsy fed her some more guacamole at home Eating food off the floor, she has standards Off setting the guacamole with cheese If they sold milk at garage sales My jeans were $80 When you're listening to this I will be wearing the same clothes What you and your wife do is cute Jeans were not that much money for ones that fit right Knock-off ketchup will set Kris off Betsy says I spend too much money on stuff "Do you know how many pairs of jeans I could have bought you for $80 at Goodwill?" Betsy is trying for the senior discount Garage sale booty The secret to Betsy shopping speeds Possible fake Coach purse Hanging at the Tech Cockatil mixer Being able to buy things makes me feel good It's the nicest gift besides giving her grand-children Doctor asks if Betsy and I are related . . . nice Our fly farm and my fly paper business More anniversary talk Slowsky is coming home!!!

Croncast - 2006-07-07.mp3 Show: #246 Length: 36:58 Size: 25.4 mb Format: mp3 Betsy and her husband Kris July 07, 2006 Betsy will have gifts from Maggies guacamole love All she says is momma Betsy and Maggie had lunch with me The guacamole caked her dress Betsy fed her some more guacamole at home Eating food off the floor, she has standards Off setting the guacamole with cheese If they sold milk at garage sales My jeans were $80 When you're listening to this I will be wearing the same clothes What you and your wife do is cute Jeans were not that much money for ones that fit right Knock-off ketchup will set Kris off Betsy says I spend too much money on stuff "Do you know how many pairs of jeans I could have bought you for $80 at Goodwill?" Betsy is trying for the senior discount Garage sale booty The secret to Betsy shopping speeds Possible fake Coach purse Hanging at the Tech Cockatil mixer Being able to buy things makes me feel good It's the nicest gift besides giving her grand-children Doctor asks if Betsy and I are related . . . nice Our fly farm and my fly paper business More anniversary talk Slowsky is coming home!!!

Croncast - 2006-07-07.mp3 Show: #246 Length: 36:58 Size: 25.4 mb Format: mp3 Betsy and her husband Kris July 07, 2006 Betsy will have gifts from Maggies guacamole love All she says is momma Betsy and Maggie had lunch with me The guacamole caked her dress Betsy fed her some more guacamole at home Eating food off the floor, she has standards Off setting the guacamole with cheese If they sold milk at garage sales My jeans were $80 When you're listening to this I will be wearing the same clothes What you and your wife do is cute Jeans were not that much money for ones that fit right Knock-off ketchup will set Kris off Betsy says I spend too much money on stuff "Do you know how many pairs of jeans I could have bought you for $80 at Goodwill?" Betsy is trying for the senior discount Garage sale booty The secret to Betsy shopping speeds Possible fake Coach purse Hanging at the Tech Cockatil mixer Being able to buy things makes me feel good It's the nicest gift besides giving her grand-children Doctor asks if Betsy and I are related . . . nice Our fly farm and my fly paper business More anniversary talk Slowsky is coming home!!!

Croncast - 2006-07-07.mp3 Show: #246 Length: 36:58 Size: 25.4 mb Format: mp3 Betsy and her husband Kris July 07, 2006 Betsy will have gifts from Maggies guacamole love All she says is momma Betsy and Maggie had lunch with me The guacamole caked her dress Betsy fed her some more guacamole at home Eating food off the floor, she has standards Off setting the guacamole with cheese If they sold milk at garage sales My jeans were $80 When you're listening to this I will be wearing the same clothes What you and your wife do is cute Jeans were not that much money for ones that fit right Knock-off ketchup will set Kris off Betsy says I spend too much money on stuff "Do you know how many pairs of jeans I could have bought you for $80 at Goodwill?" Betsy is trying for the senior discount Garage sale booty The secret to Betsy shopping speeds Possible fake Coach purse Hanging at the Tech Cockatil mixer Being able to buy things makes me feel good It's the nicest gift besides giving her grand-children Doctor asks if Betsy and I are related . . . nice Our fly farm and my fly paper business More anniversary talk Slowsky is coming home!!!

Croncast - 2006-07-07.mp3 Show: #246 Length: 36:58 Size: 25.4 mb Format: mp3 Betsy and her husband Kris July 07, 2006 Betsy will have gifts from Maggies guacamole love All she says is momma Betsy and Maggie had lunch with me The guacamole caked her dress Betsy fed her some more guacamole at home Eating food off the floor, she has standards Off setting the guacamole with cheese If they sold milk at garage sales My jeans were $80 When you're listening to this I will be wearing the same clothes What you and your wife do is cute Jeans were not that much money for ones that fit right Knock-off ketchup will set Kris off Betsy says I spend too much money on stuff "Do you know how many pairs of jeans I could have bought you for $80 at Goodwill?" Betsy is trying for the senior discount Garage sale booty The secret to Betsy shopping speeds Possible fake Coach purse Hanging at the Tech Cockatil mixer Being able to buy things makes me feel good It's the nicest gift besides giving her grand-children Doctor asks if Betsy and I are related . . . nice Our fly farm and my fly paper business More anniversary talk Slowsky is coming home!!!

Croncast - 2006-07-07.mp3 Show: #246 Length: 36:58 Size: 25.4 mb Format: mp3 Betsy and her husband Kris July 07, 2006 Betsy will have gifts from Maggies guacamole love All she says is momma Betsy and Maggie had lunch with me The guacamole caked her dress Betsy fed her some more guacamole at home Eating food off the floor, she has standards Off setting the guacamole with cheese If they sold milk at garage sales My jeans were $80 When you're listening to this I will be wearing the same clothes What you and your wife do is cute Jeans were not that much money for ones that fit right Knock-off ketchup will set Kris off Betsy says I spend too much money on stuff "Do you know how many pairs of jeans I could have bought you for $80 at Goodwill?" Betsy is trying for the senior discount Garage sale booty The secret to Betsy shopping speeds Possible fake Coach purse Hanging at the Tech Cockatil mixer Being able to buy things makes me feel good It's the nicest gift besides giving her grand-children Doctor asks if Betsy and I are related . . . nice Our fly farm and my fly paper business More anniversary talk Slowsky is coming home!!!

Croncast - 2006-07-07.mp3 Show: #246 Length: 36:58 Size: 25.4 mb Format: mp3 Betsy and her husband Kris July 07, 2006 Betsy will have gifts from Maggies guacamole love All she says is momma Betsy and Maggie had lunch with me The guacamole caked her dress Betsy fed her some more guacamole at home Eating food off the floor, she has standards Off setting the guacamole with cheese If they sold milk at garage sales My jeans were $80 When you're listening to this I will be wearing the same clothes What you and your wife do is cute Jeans were not that much money for ones that fit right Knock-off ketchup will set Kris off Betsy says I spend too much money on stuff "Do you know how many pairs of jeans I could have bought you for $80 at Goodwill?" Betsy is trying for the senior discount Garage sale booty The secret to Betsy shopping speeds Possible fake Coach purse Hanging at the Tech Cockatil mixer Being able to buy things makes me feel good It's the nicest gift besides giving her grand-children Doctor asks if Betsy and I are related . . . nice Our fly farm and my fly paper business More anniversary talk Slowsky is coming home!!!

Croncast - 2006-07-07.mp3 Show: #246 Length: 36:58 Size: 25.4 mb Format: mp3 Betsy and her husband Kris July 07, 2006 Betsy will have gifts from Maggies guacamole love All she says is momma Betsy and Maggie had lunch with me The guacamole caked her dress Betsy fed her some more guacamole at home Eating food off the floor, she has standards Off setting the guacamole with cheese If they sold milk at garage sales My jeans were $80 When you're listening to this I will be wearing the same clothes What you and your wife do is cute Jeans were not that much money for ones that fit right Knock-off ketchup will set Kris off Betsy says I spend too much money on stuff "Do you know how many pairs of jeans I could have bought you for $80 at Goodwill?" Betsy is trying for the senior discount Garage sale booty The secret to Betsy shopping speeds Possible fake Coach purse Hanging at the Tech Cockatil mixer Being able to buy things makes me feel good It's the nicest gift besides giving her grand-children Doctor asks if Betsy and I are related . . . nice Our fly farm and my fly paper business More anniversary talk Slowsky is coming home!!!

Croncast - 2006-07-07.mp3 Show: #246 Length: 36:58 Size: 25.4 mb Format: mp3 Betsy and her husband Kris July 07, 2006 Betsy will have gifts from Maggies guacamole love All she says is momma Betsy and Maggie had lunch with me The guacamole caked her dress Betsy fed her some more guacamole at home Eating food off the floor, she has standards Off setting the guacamole with cheese If they sold milk at garage sales My jeans were $80 When you're listening to this I will be wearing the same clothes What you and your wife do is cute Jeans were not that much money for ones that fit right Knock-off ketchup will set Kris off Betsy says I spend too much money on stuff "Do you know how many pairs of jeans I could have bought you for $80 at Goodwill?" Betsy is trying for the senior discount Garage sale booty The secret to Betsy shopping speeds Possible fake Coach purse Hanging at the Tech Cockatil mixer Being able to buy things makes me feel good It's the nicest gift besides giving her grand-children Doctor asks if Betsy and I are related . . . nice Our fly farm and my fly paper business More anniversary talk Slowsky is coming home!!!

Croncast - 2006-07-07.mp3 Show: #246 Length: 36:58 Size: 25.4 mb Format: mp3 Betsy and her husband Kris July 07, 2006 Betsy will have gifts from Maggies guacamole love All she says is momma Betsy and Maggie had lunch with me The guacamole caked her dress Betsy fed her some more guacamole at home Eating food off the floor, she has standards Off setting the guacamole with cheese If they sold milk at garage sales My jeans were $80 When you're listening to this I will be wearing the same clothes What you and your wife do is cute Jeans were not that much money for ones that fit right Knock-off ketchup will set Kris off Betsy says I spend too much money on stuff "Do you know how many pairs of jeans I could have bought you for $80 at Goodwill?" Betsy is trying for the senior discount Garage sale booty The secret to Betsy shopping speeds Possible fake Coach purse Hanging at the Tech Cockatil mixer Being able to buy things makes me feel good It's the nicest gift besides giving her grand-children Doctor asks if Betsy and I are related . . . nice Our fly farm and my fly paper business More anniversary talk Slowsky is coming home!!!

Croncast - 2006-07-07.mp3 Show: #246 Length: 36:58 Size: 25.4 mb Format: mp3 Betsy and her husband Kris July 07, 2006 Betsy will have gifts from Maggies guacamole love All she says is momma Betsy and Maggie had lunch with me The guacamole caked her dress Betsy fed her some more guacamole at home Eating food off the floor, she has standards Off setting the guacamole with cheese If they sold milk at garage sales My jeans were $80 When you're listening to this I will be wearing the same clothes What you and your wife do is cute Jeans were not that much money for ones that fit right Knock-off ketchup will set Kris off Betsy says I spend too much money on stuff "Do you know how many pairs of jeans I could have bought you for $80 at Goodwill?" Betsy is trying for the senior discount Garage sale booty The secret to Betsy shopping speeds Possible fake Coach purse Hanging at the Tech Cockatil mixer Being able to buy things makes me feel good It's the nicest gift besides giving her grand-children Doctor asks if Betsy and I are related . . . nice Our fly farm and my fly paper business More anniversary talk Slowsky is coming home!!!

Croncast - 2006-07-07.mp3 Show: #246 Length: 36:58 Size: 25.4 mb Format: mp3 Betsy and her husband Kris July 07, 2006 Betsy will have gifts from Maggies guacamole love All she says is momma Betsy and Maggie had lunch with me The guacamole caked her dress Betsy fed her some more guacamole at home Eating food off the floor, she has standards Off setting the guacamole with cheese If they sold milk at garage sales My jeans were $80 When you're listening to this I will be wearing the same clothes What you and your wife do is cute Jeans were not that much money for ones that fit right Knock-off ketchup will set Kris off Betsy says I spend too much money on stuff "Do you know how many pairs of jeans I could have bought you for $80 at Goodwill?" Betsy is trying for the senior discount Garage sale booty The secret to Betsy shopping speeds Possible fake Coach purse Hanging at the Tech Cockatil mixer Being able to buy things makes me feel good It's the nicest gift besides giving her grand-children Doctor asks if Betsy and I are related . . . nice Our fly farm and my fly paper business More anniversary talk Slowsky is coming home!!!

Croncast - 2006-07-07.mp3 Show: #246 Length: 36:58 Size: 25.4 mb Format: mp3 Betsy and her husband Kris July 07, 2006 Betsy will have gifts from Maggies guacamole love All she says is momma Betsy and Maggie had lunch with me The guacamole caked her dress Betsy fed her some more guacamole at home Eating food off the floor, she has standards Off setting the guacamole with cheese If they sold milk at garage sales My jeans were $80 When you're listening to this I will be wearing the same clothes What you and your wife do is cute Jeans were not that much money for ones that fit right Knock-off ketchup will set Kris off Betsy says I spend too much money on stuff "Do you know how many pairs of jeans I could have bought you for $80 at Goodwill?" Betsy is trying for the senior discount Garage sale booty The secret to Betsy shopping speeds Possible fake Coach purse Hanging at the Tech Cockatil mixer Being able to buy things makes me feel good It's the nicest gift besides giving her grand-children Doctor asks if Betsy and I are related . . . nice Our fly farm and my fly paper business More anniversary talk Slowsky is coming home!!!

Croncast - 2006-07-07.mp3 Show: #246 Length: 36:58 Size: 25.4 mb Format: mp3 Betsy and her husband Kris July 07, 2006 Betsy will have gifts from Maggies guacamole love All she says is momma Betsy and Maggie had lunch with me The guacamole caked her dress Betsy fed her some more guacamole at home Eating food off the floor, she has standards Off setting the guacamole with cheese If they sold milk at garage sales My jeans were $80 When you're listening to this I will be wearing the same clothes What you and your wife do is cute Jeans were not that much money for ones that fit right Knock-off ketchup will set Kris off Betsy says I spend too much money on stuff "Do you know how many pairs of jeans I could have bought you for $80 at Goodwill?" Betsy is trying for the senior discount Garage sale booty The secret to Betsy shopping speeds Possible fake Coach purse Hanging at the Tech Cockatil mixer Being able to buy things makes me feel good It's the nicest gift besides giving her grand-children Doctor asks if Betsy and I are related . . . nice Our fly farm and my fly paper business More anniversary talk Slowsky is coming home!!!

Croncast - 2006-07-07.mp3 Show: #246 Length: 36:58 Size: 25.4 mb Format: mp3 Betsy and her husband Kris July 07, 2006 Betsy will have gifts from Maggies guacamole love All she says is momma Betsy and Maggie had lunch with me The guacamole caked her dress Betsy fed her some more guacamole at home Eating food off the floor, she has standards Off setting the guacamole with cheese If they sold milk at garage sales My jeans were $80 When you're listening to this I will be wearing the same clothes What you and your wife do is cute Jeans were not that much money for ones that fit right Knock-off ketchup will set Kris off Betsy says I spend too much money on stuff "Do you know how many pairs of jeans I could have bought you for $80 at Goodwill?" Betsy is trying for the senior discount Garage sale booty The secret to Betsy shopping speeds Possible fake Coach purse Hanging at the Tech Cockatil mixer Being able to buy things makes me feel good It's the nicest gift besides giving her grand-children Doctor asks if Betsy and I are related . . . nice Our fly farm and my fly paper business More anniversary talk Slowsky is coming home!!!

Croncast - 2006-07-07.mp3 Show: #246 Length: 36:58 Size: 25.4 mb Format: mp3 Betsy and her husband Kris July 07, 2006 Betsy will have gifts from Maggies guacamole love All she says is momma Betsy and Maggie had lunch with me The guacamole caked her dress Betsy fed her some more guacamole at home Eating food off the floor, she has standards Off setting the guacamole with cheese If they sold milk at garage sales My jeans were $80 When you're listening to this I will be wearing the same clothes What you and your wife do is cute Jeans were not that much money for ones that fit right Knock-off ketchup will set Kris off Betsy says I spend too much money on stuff "Do you know how many pairs of jeans I could have bought you for $80 at Goodwill?" Betsy is trying for the senior discount Garage sale booty The secret to Betsy shopping speeds Possible fake Coach purse Hanging at the Tech Cockatil mixer Being able to buy things makes me feel good It's the nicest gift besides giving her grand-children Doctor asks if Betsy and I are related . . . nice Our fly farm and my fly paper business More anniversary talk Slowsky is coming home!!!