I Took a Hike
Gear up for a hike like no other and discover the landscape of business, life, and the complex trails that intertwine them.
Embark on a journey with host Darren Mass and a new inspirational guest each week as they navigate steep terrain while engaging in thought-provoking conversations that unveil the intricate dance between entrepreneurship and the human spirit.
It's an exploration of wisdom, stories, and nature-filled inspiration. Lace up for an adventure where trails and tales intertwine, only on the I Took a Hike Podcast.
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I Took a Hike
Jason Ellinger - The Power of Video in Shaping Opinions & Driving Change
On a bright sunny afternoon, I found myself on a hike with the creative genius, Jason Ellinger, co-founder of Beard & Bowler Productions. We journeyed both physically and metaphorically, delving into Jason's inspiring journey in the world of video production. He warmly enlightened us with stories from his high school days, filming basketball games, to his college days dabbling in the medium, and even recording weddings. We navigated the rocky terrains of his transition from hard news to Beard and Bowler, his resilience through the turbulent 2008 financial crisis, and the surprising benefits of entrepreneurship during a recession.
Our meandering path led us deeper into Jason's riveting journey, filled with heartfelt stories, priceless lessons, and challenging struggles. We uncovered the truth behind his internal battle - a tug-of-war between the desire to generate wealth and the passion to create something meaningful. His accounts of community heroes were equally riveting, offering a peek into the heart of a man dedicated to making a difference. Our discussion also turned towards the innovative ways he managed to unite corporate entities with nonprofits and his ingenious approach to marketing his venture.
As the sun began to set, we explored Jason's storytelling prowess through video and sound. He shared insights on the consequential responsibility attached to video production and its potential to unify people. Jason's candid narrative about his past experiences, his unique way of conducting meetings - on a walk, his business roles and the challenges of success were not only informative but also profoundly inspiring. Settle in to join us on this remarkable exploration of creativity, passion, and success in the video production landscape with Jason Ellinger. You wouldn't want to miss this!
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All right, Jason Elinger, are you okay with being recorded on a podcast?
Speaker 2:I am okay with being recorded on a podcast. Well, there goes that liability.
Speaker 1:This is I Took a Hike. I'm your host, darren Mass, founder of Business Therapy Group and Parktime Wilderness Philosopher. Here we step out of the boardrooms and home offices and into the great outdoors, where the hustle of entrepreneurship meets the rustle of nature. In this episode, we hike along with Jason Elinger, co-founder of Beard Bola Productions and a creative genius with a huge heart. Our topics include the magic of video, the shaking reality of hard news, a mission filled with core values and social lessons for a growing business. I am inspired by Jason's uplifting personality and sound core values. When I took a hike with Jason Elinger, it wasn't until I embarked on this podcast journey that I realized the impact of problem-solving in nature. And now I would like to help you. I invite you or your team to join me on a hike and experience business therapy, all while on the trail. Visit itookahikecom for more information on our hiking therapy.
Speaker 2:Darren Mass, are you okay being recorded on video.
Speaker 1:I am very okay being recorded on video. This, I would say, is a first for me, so I'm enjoying that Nice. Alright, jason Elinger, you are the founder of Beard Bola Fantastic name and I can almost surmise the reason why you have a beard and you don a fantastic bola. So I'm in the back right now. There you go. You are the first person I've ever seen wear a bola in real life and you look good wearing it. Thank you, I appreciate that. So we're going to get into that story in a little bit, but first we want to know who is Jason Elinger. Why did you decide to go in the path of video production? And we can take it from there.
Speaker 2:Okay, video production. Taking it way back, I remember in high school basketball coach asking me to record the games. He gets the footage back and starts yelling. And they called me L in high school for my last name. They said L what are you doing? You're zooming in, you're panning out, you're doing crash zooms on the layups and stuff he told me to record and he's like left right, left right, keep it, keep it wide. So he just wanted a wide shot, yeah, he just wanted a simple wide shot, but I couldn't help myself. And then every time for our senior trip somebody had a video camera, I was like, give me that and for some reason it fascinated me. Most things I could pick up and do no problem, and it wasn't really an issue Like even photography framing, shot composition, exposure and I feel like if I put myself into that I could pick it up really easily and I did for a little while. But video there's so many layers to it. It's your framing, your composition, your audio, your camera movement. Everything was just like so complex. And then if you want to add depth to any shot, you could go above and beyond. Right, and then it was just about how you stand out. So you're always adding new things, doing new tricks color correction, sound design, editing Like it was the one thing that I could put my everything into and still not be like good enough.
Speaker 1:So you had unlimited control over this medium. That really shaped your mind. How old were you when you first picked up? Let's go to a camera. Yeah, probably in high school, Probably in high school, and it was because of that moment, with the coach saying will you pick up this video camera? That's what gave you that spark.
Speaker 2:That was one of the sparks and that was when I first found an interest in it and then I decided, just in watching some of my peers like and youth group leaders and stuff that did video or video editing, I knew one guy that edited for Access Hollywood and I was like communications, communications, broadcasting. I just picked a random field to go into in college. It's been like two and a half years at William Patterson just floating around, no guidance, didn't touch a camera, and then I was like you know what? I'm just going to switch to Bergen and like in the first three weeks at Bergen Community College I'm like touching the $18,000 TV cameras, you know.
Speaker 1:Oh, so you're in a candy store at this point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, doing broadcasts and stuff your own news reports. So, yeah, that was my first foray into it. But the turning point for me, I think, was one of the professors there. They were like, oh, he worked at Google. He must know what he's doing with video editing and I feel like that's why they hired him. And then he knew nothing about Final Cut Pro or editing. The first class I went to, I opened up Final Cut Pro, this video editing suite I got a headache. I shut it down, I dropped the class. I couldn't, I couldn't, right, it was just too overpowered, right.
Speaker 1:Like many things, right, you dove in, but you dove in too quickly.
Speaker 2:It's too much. The second class the teacher knew nothing about, but by that time I was prepared. I bought a camera. I bought this crazy $8,000, $10,000 Mac Pro set up in the MacBook Pro, and I was already editing at that point. Wait, where did you get all the money for this? Credit cards.
Speaker 1:Could you pay those credit cards off?
Speaker 2:We're still working on that. What's what's 2009?
Speaker 1:So we're talking about your own version of Student.
Speaker 2:Loan. There you go, okay, but what happened was I learned more just from doing than anything else, right, yep?
Speaker 1:Hey, listener, thanks for hiking along with us. Discover more episodes at itokahikecom, or to recommend an adventurous guest, apply to be a sponsor, discover books along the trail, or to simply drop us a line. All right, so let's, let's fast forward a little bit. You go through college. Was there anything that really kept that spark going for you that influenced you to get to the next level, to make this into a huge career?
Speaker 2:So I think the there was two things. One was that class that the teacher came from Google but knew nothing about editing. I was there, I was telling my wife, my girlfriend at the time, that I'm basically teaching the class and she didn't believe me. So I was like, come with me. She's like I can just come into your class. I'm like, yeah, come with me, I don't worry, I got this. And she's sitting there for like 10 minutes and she's like, wait, so where's the teacher? And I'm like he's right there. You mean the guy turning around asking you all the questions Like what's the shortcut to render and how do you export. You were the pro and I was like at that point, yeah, so that was number one that I realized that I had something there, at least in video editing. And then number two was because I started and my wife had all these friends that she met in college and they all started getting married. I started doing their weddings and that's that's where I started. I would just record their weddings. First, one or two were free, but that third one, I got paid and I'll never forget it. I probably still have the church bulletin that it was folded up in $270 cash. That was big money. After tens of thousands of dollars spent, that was like like your first dollar.
Speaker 3:And I'm like that was an ROI.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was it. You achieved your first boost of wait a minute. There's something behind here. This could be a business. Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was my first paycheck.
Speaker 1:So, with that being said, when did you really get the notion that I'm going to make this a full time? This is my life.
Speaker 2:After I got through my wedding, I think about.
Speaker 3:Your own personal wedding.
Speaker 2:No, no. 2007,. 2008. 2007's when I started, 2008 was the recession, so I launched officially with what was then considered a luxury item and that was a tough few years. But then I'm getting married myself. So I need stability, I need benefits and I decide I'm going to take a day job on while I keep the business alive. And I got a job as a hard news photojournalist and I had the 4 am to noon shift, so I was out there.
Speaker 1:So hard news. Is that the shift, or is that more complex, challenging subject matter? What is hard?
Speaker 2:It's not sports, it's not entertainment, whether it's like fire, shooting, stabbings, murderers assaults every morning Hard news that has to be really daunting. Yeah, I saw some of the worst parts of New Jersey and the worst parts of humanity. And then it wasn't until after my second 11 year old funeral where the reporter just kind of nudged me without looking up and said get the mother, like, make sure you interview the mom, oh Jesus. And at that point, as I'm interviewing this weeping mom who just lost her kid, I'm like still justifying it to myself, like hey, maybe somebody will see this, maybe somebody will learn from these mistakes. It's back there next month, next week, next day.
Speaker 1:Repentative cycle, same, thing, never ending.
Speaker 2:Stuffed animals on a telephone pole. T-shirts with the ink sign, cards and candles Like those were the things that I kept getting shots of right, and I think I realized at that point that I was doing more harm than good but didn't know a way out.
Speaker 1:Why do you think you're doing more harm than good?
Speaker 2:I think when you show people the negative as opposed to the positive, it creates this almost like people get depressed watching the news too much. Right, the news is extremely depressing.
Speaker 1:It plays on the strongest sense, which an emotion, which is fear. Right, that's the one that lasts. You don't hear about shiny, happy people and ponies, yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, you might have a 10 second clip on that.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You might have a 10 second clip about the gunshot stabbings, the fact that the world's going to blow up anyway.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly, and I would see that and I'd see the copycat nature of it. Like these channels are here, there's choppers over here. Get to this scene. Forget that nonprofit you were just interviewing. Get to this scene.
Speaker 1:So you feared that you were perpetuating fear. Right yeah, and that really gripped at your heart. I called it you had an inner struggle, regardless of the salary or the income, yeah, and I think it was that this wasn't your path, because you're not going to be part of that corrupt machine, right, yeah, what was if I can go back a little, what was the worst thing? That is seared in your brain that you saw that just, you can't get out.
Speaker 2:There's a lot, and that one was that kids in the world there's two of them. One was mauled by Pitbull, the other oh yeah, that's horrific, yeah. And then I saw one of my friends from high school come out of the church at the funeral and I was like I really hope they don't see me recording this funeral here.
Speaker 1:Oh, so you were in a way ashamed and embarrassed, yeah, at some point, yeah, and.
Speaker 2:But I think one of the worst things seared into my mind was seeing going to a scene in Elizabeth where it was police versus dog and I guess the dog had got out and the police just shot it. And I remember seeing this man, his t-shirt covered in blood, and holding this dog that was yelping with bullet holes in it and he asked me he's like where do I go?
Speaker 3:What do I do?
Speaker 2:And I'm like all I could say was there's Oradell Animal Hospital and like knowing the dog's not going to make it, but like the police were gone at this point, by the way, they just like.
Speaker 1:So the police are gone yeah.
Speaker 3:They left the dog alive.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so that is obviously very inhumane, and the responsibility when an animal is truly suffering is to put the animal down. Yeah, but I find that interesting that that's the one that seared in your brain most versus any of the other crimes. And could that be because the dog is helpless, dog's supposed to be man's best friend and humans should know better? Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm a dog lover and I do agree, and I think sometimes we put ourselves in situations where we're just stupid yeah, and we could avoid it, make better decisions.
Speaker 2:You asked me and I didn't even look at the questions ahead of time, but like you asked, me, there are no questions ahead of time.
Speaker 1:This is a authentic and real conversation.
Speaker 2:That was, I don't know why. I was the first, because I remember being at Montclair and getting an angle where they don't watch because they always try and cover the sheets with bodies, and like seeing a kid just be pulled from his car, dui, and like his head hitting the ground like you knew he was gone. And I remember seeing them pulling the guy out of a tractor trailer that, like you couldn't even see the tractor because it was squashed in between, and like pulling him out, and I remember those things too, but I don't know why that first thing that came to my mind was the pit bull.
Speaker 1:Well, because that's the one that's deeply rooted in your mind. Yeah, that's your real raw expression. And those are the things we're trying to bring out because they stay with you. Yeah, right, and what do psychologists do? They dive deep. They try to tell you that you know, give you questions or ask you questions that you know. How did your Paris treat you? What was the worst thing that ever happened to you? Right, we want to bring it out because, in order to heal, you have to bring it out, to close the door. Right, right, discuss it. But that's the thing that affected you the most, right, and I think everyone can align with that. Yeah, that's horrible. So was there ever a moment where you actually wept or cried or just said that's it. I can't do this.
Speaker 2:This is not me yeah, and that moment was it started with the kids and the kids funeral and then it ended. After my guide, I started meeting with him at coffee shops and wherever, just to like work through this and he said what do you want to do? I'm like it's still video Make money Right. Let me rephrase the questions. Money is not an object. What would you want to do? Money is not an object. And I remember this guy by the name of Willie who was on Dr Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard and Rosa Parks Boulevard and like on the intersection of both of them and usually when streets are named after that those people a lot of stuff goes down and I remember a hard news photo, like a still photo, telling me about it. These guys see a lot. He worked for the record and he was telling me about this guy named Willie and he just he was an urban farmer community garden on two burned down pieces of land and across from two burned down buildings. On two empty plots of land where nothing would grow. He had to bring in his own dirt and he was 70, starting this has a full time job started. This community garden brings kids in to mentor them, worked the dirt, the earth their hands and he was just a light in a very dark area. How the farmers market every other weekend. You couldn't afford to donate, just take a bag, like that was like the catalyst. I want to tell that story.
Speaker 1:And then my guide, my Yoda, was like your Yoda it's not the first time I've heard that on this show.
Speaker 2:He was like I want to tell those stories too. Like problem is there's no money in it. Like, how do you do that? And if you figure it out, though, let me know, because I'm coming with you. We found the why. That was the why.
Speaker 1:You found a why. All right, I'm going to reverse this the other way, because I was so interested in your story that I actually took us in the wrong direction. We're going to turn it that way and go back. Is this a long path? This is the path back, but we're still yet to get to the main crux of the trail. Gotcha, sorry about that. Oh good, okay, so you've got your Yoda, which I love that term, because that's what a good guide and a mentor is right. It's not about them charging you as a client it's about them guiding you, because there's something altruistic there and based on what you do right. You create video productions for, not for profits. I can see there's some sort of connection here with Yoda and yourself being a Yoda. Why don't we talk about that for a little bit? So what got you into the notion that there is an underserved aspect of the market where you can turn that into a business? Put all that past behind you, right, all that negative, the ugly of society, of humanity, behind you. It feels great about what you do. They're not going to be easy.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What's the turning?
Speaker 2:point. When we found our Y, we took that and tried to figure out a how and we were like, maybe we can connect corporate companies. Well, let me start with the problem. The problem is nonprofits don't have awareness, they don't have exposure and they have the best stories that we all need to hear to be inspired.
Speaker 1:And they have a lower budget.
Speaker 2:And a lower budget. Yeah. So what if we could? And then if they had video, it was usually a student or an artist who was just starting out who'd donate their time get in over their head, realize they had three months of post-production nonprofit, would be involved in the editing process and it would be a win for no one. So I was like what if we could combine corporate with nonprofit and have them underwrite the cost of this? And we tried. We hit a wall when we found out that corporate had these sections called CSR, corporate Social Responsibility, but they already had their own nonprofits and initiatives that they did for employee morale, for PR, for whatever it was.
Speaker 1:I was just going to ask, does that almost feel like it's a little bit for sure? For sure, not in reality.
Speaker 2:The people that work in CSR are really good people that actually want to make a difference, and they're trying to do it with corporate, but I think corporate's just like we have to do this, so we need to give them money, and then this bunch is attached right off, but they already have their own initiatives that align with their brand.
Speaker 1:So they have good, altruistic people that believe in the mission and what they're doing, but they're held back by a Fortune X company or a corporation not too dissimilar to a big, wealthy, established family with a foundation. There's an ulterior motive there.
Speaker 2:Okay, fair enough. Good PR is number one and number two spending the money that they need to spend for taxes.
Speaker 3:Of course, I think.
Speaker 2:But I'm not deeply entrenched there. I feel like, especially with the new generations, there's a lot of people that demand that they work for good companies that are giving back. So I feel like it's going to become more authentic as we go along.
Speaker 1:Well, that's certainly one of the things that we're seeing with Gen Z specifically is they're not entirely taking a position or a role based on their profit for themselves, but for the ability to help others. They're more social than ever before. So why do you think that would be Right? Because when I grew up in my generation, I'm at the very tail end of expanding. Even being a millennial born in 1980, in May, I grew up where it's all about getting that great paying job. Go to college, get that job, work up the career ladder, start off at the bottom, climb those rungs. It's about you, the you generation, or the me generation. Now the younger generations are all about how do I give back, how do I help society? And hey, that's a great thing, more people like that, we'd have a better planet. So why do you think that pivot took place?
Speaker 2:I feel like we're always like not rebelling against our parents, but like trying to improve. We are. So I guess you have to think of the eras and where people were and like back to where everyone used to get dressed up to go out and now it's like cool to be informal and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:We used to wear suits on planes. There's a little bit before me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You're lucky if you can wear flip flops.
Speaker 2:So that might be their own version of like, let's say, rock and roll or something where it was. You know, I don't know.
Speaker 1:So the rebellion of the youth these days is to say hey, parents, you destroyed this thing. Yeah. I got to fix your mess Okay.
Speaker 2:I mean, there were even songs like this isn't? This is in our mess to clean up? I can't remember the name of the song, but there's at least two of them where they're like this is an armistice to clean up. You left this we didn't set the world on fire, or whatever. From Billy Joel.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's, a great one, yes.
Speaker 2:And then I think there's like newer generations that, like you, left us with this mess. So now that there's a bit more security and a lot of, I think, the kids coming out maybe safe, feel safe, it's like okay. So now what do we do? And it's almost become cool to like give back.
Speaker 1:So cool to give back, all right. So let's just try to cut through, just try to find the cut through, because this part is not as mapped. Okay, so let's talk about the business a little. How does a client find you, or do you find the client?
Speaker 2:You still have to find the client. But now that we're starting to market, do some marketing here. They're starting to find us. One is LinkedIn. We post every day, let me guess, on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:Yep, that you should post X amount of times. Follow Y format no.
Speaker 2:Y format, just post a lot. Post this many times and four of us took this challenge where we would post six times a day for a week. One guy quit day one, one guy quit day three or four and then the other guy quit on day six because he's like, oh, I thought it was weekdays only and I was like, don't give me that, oh geez.
Speaker 1:So you were posting every day, and why did you quit though?
Speaker 2:I think the burnout part for me was being outside in the rain at my nephew's basketball game trying to get my fifth post in per the day and upload it, because we decided to do it and then launched it the next week without a bunch of content in the bank. So that was burnout. I had to stop for a while and then I came across a copywriter who was fantastic on LinkedIn. I set up a system with him I think I'm the only client that he does this with but he interviews me once a week and gives me prompts. We're doing it right after I get back off this trail and he'll ask me three to five questions I'll give him you know there's supposed to be like 45 second answers. Some of them are like five 10 minute monologues and then he'll create posts out of it, but in a consumable way that works for a weekday.
Speaker 1:So someone else is creating the posts for you.
Speaker 2:Yes, someone else is formatting the posts.
Speaker 1:And you outsourced, and I'm a big believer of if this is not your passion, right? Yes, startup businesses. This is obviously a lot tougher to do because of financing, but if you don't have a passion for, let's say, posting, then find somebody that does, because they'll be far better at it than you will.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's not a canned social media thing where it's like, oh, we're going to post about this today. It's like these are my. I read it back and I'm like, wow, I say that three times a day on sales calls and it sounds like me, right. So that was very important to have my voice, just my voice edited similar to what we're going to do with this video. You're not going to see two hours, right, just like small clips in the right order.
Speaker 1:For sure so yeah, so your voice is your brand, right. You can't outsource your voice, and I think companies do make that mistake when they stop talking for themselves and allow somebody else just to make up the story. That completely takes you off course. It waters down the brand too much. Yeah, all right, so your marketing is predominantly LinkedIn, from what I see. Are you on other social media platforms?
Speaker 2:We are on YouTube shorts. Okay, which?
Speaker 1:makes sense Video.
Speaker 2:We're on YouTube and we decided to go to rather shorts, which is very much like Instagram, facebook Reels and TikTok. Okay, but it is the owned by the number one search engine. I think it's the number two search engine in the world, youtube, owned by Google, so we may not go anywhere for a while at least, and also helps for SEO. So that is right. Yeah, we have a ton of YouTube shorts.
Speaker 1:Do you feel like you've cracked the code?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Work in progress.
Speaker 2:I know that YouTube from shorts. We've seen more traction than we've seen for long form vlogs over the past couple of years and just this short amount of time. But yeah, yeah, just, we're still pushing constantly. We'll get a few that go up to like 1.2 or 1.6 K views, but nothing like record breaking yet. Okay, just like well above our follower count. So we're still finding our voice. We're really going to double down on that when my business partner comes back on full time and he can help with the creative of that.
Speaker 1:Why is your business partner not on full time? If you don't mind me asking.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we had him on it's just kind of like a volunteer for a while and he had another job and he was fine. He had just worked on there and then we were good for I want to say, two years, like that. We started giving him a salary. But then things happened. Covid happened and he's got a family, he's got four kids. So he had the end up getting like Income is king Right. So he got like two, three jobs. One of them was like full time with a nonprofit as a director of communication. So we really got entrenched in it and we decided that that would be the best kind of move, so really getting entrenched in the nonprofit world.
Speaker 1:Not a bad plan in any way, shape or form. In fact, one of my first businesses, my business partner, worked a full time job as well. But I will say that is a losing recipe if you don't have at least one person full time or a lot of salary, because then you don't have that dedicated drive and you have nothing but distraction.
Speaker 2:So that was me for a while, just the one person. Then I had an editor and he went away in COVID and then Sean was the next full time hire and I was talking to him and I'm like, are you good with this? And he's like, yes, I want you to build something that's going to be stable when I come back and it's going to take some time.
Speaker 1:I'm okay with that and this way, this trail isn't the best marked. If you see the seas, that's telling you where to go. That's called the blaze, so you want to stay with that. If it goes slightly to the right, that means make a right slightly to the left. Well, you got it All right. So you had mentioned that you started your business in 2008.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 2007. I was official.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you started your business in 2007? Yeah, so what's your opinion on that? Did that suck for you? This is a loaded question because we'll go into it for a second, but what was that like starting a business in 2007,. Then 08 hits financial doom. The world is falling apart. Did you get any business around that time?
Speaker 2:You know, it was one of those things where I tell people I started in 07, remember what happened in 08, and if I'm speaking at events or who it's like. Oh yeah, I launched with what was then considered a luxury item and that's kind of the story. But, like, the truth behind that is like I didn't have a business plan. I didn't know what sales was. I didn't know how to generate leads. I was on Twitter looking at hashtags for video production, seeing if anybody needed work. So I didn't understand the concept of sales. So I didn't really even have a business per se. So for me it was bad, but I just it felt like it was bad because I didn't know what I was doing. And yeah, I think decade plus ago that was the case. But I had one of my wife's friends. I just would flip from job to job to job, but these high end marketing jobs. So she brought me with her at all these jobs I was working with, like Vibe magazine, Kanday, Nass, L'Oreal, all these big name brands. So I was doing all right in that sense and working with larger companies Was that?
Speaker 1:still on brand for what you were doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I was just doing like whoever needed video. There wasn't really a purpose there until 2016, when, like we officially formed Beard and Bowler.
Speaker 1:Were you doing that for your company at the time or as like a contractor?
Speaker 2:It was my company back then was AJ Video Productions, so it was on brand.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to tell you you were extremely lucky for having started a business in 07, 08. And I started my telecom business in 08. And here's why you were extremely lucky. When the world is hurting, when the economy is hurting, when news is bad, people are suffering in the sense. Financially, you are starting off slower. Of course, people aren't buying your product, but what it's doing is getting you the ability to train, to learn those new things, to fail and then repeat good practice, recognizing failures. It gets you the ability to appreciate what you're doing as a business owner and, if you survive, you build a stronger, more well-rounded, more educated you Right. You've removed some of those fears of failure, because how could you fear worse than well? Starting at zero is right. You failed at zeroes, right, so you pushed past it. So, therefore, every sale is on the way up Now. When you look at your competition those big competitors that would historically want to squash you they're too focused on saving their own assets. They're not paying attention to you. Yeah, that's true. So I mentioned this before in other episodes. Some of the biggest, most successful businesses that you will ever think of started during recessions, depressions, world crashing events Right, and the reason why they're so strong is they had those formative years without competition trying to beat them down, where their business owners got a chance to work themselves up. Right, that was you, my friend. Yeah, you did it All, right, cool.
Speaker 3:I did it.
Speaker 1:No, that's a great story, so kudos to that. And I tell anyone who's saying because lots of people are why should I start a business in COVID? Yeah, well, look how many businesses went out of business that weren't started in COVID during COVID. Look how many businesses are around today and making big social strides. Mm-hmm, right, we have big socially responsible organizations. Now why COVID? They started in COVID. They were given the tools of COVID Zoom. They don't need an office, right? Yeah, they're better for it. And those that are around today are now real brands. Is that true? All right, so now you start Bearden Bowler in 2016. Yes, you have the confidence behind you. A little money in the bank.
Speaker 2:Yes, that was the catalyst, because I was didn't want to leave my job, which had become full-time, and I was a half a decade in at the news, not comfortable, but like. I had a system.
Speaker 1:This is the one where you really are having a hard time.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Digesting what you're doing.
Speaker 2:Right and but now still having to take care of a family yes, married for a couple of years now. So like that was, I wanted to leave but knew it wouldn't be responsible to leave. So I worked with my Yoda and we came up with a plan and I was like I've had luck with agencies before, like marketing agencies, small ones, but you know, instead of one client you have three that you're working with through them sometimes. So, and he's like dude, I know an agency owner. They use the parking lot where I work and I let them use it. And he was a pastor at a church at the time and he's like he owes I think he kind of owes me a favor. And I was like okay, so we kept working on this and how our pitch was going to be. Eight months, I think, we spent preparing for a random meeting with this guy and we get to sorry money part.
Speaker 1:Yep, you got to choose your path wisely.
Speaker 2:All right, so we're prepping for this meeting.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we're getting ready, and then he goes home. He tells his wife about the guy we're trying to chase. The guy goes home and tells his wife about these people that we're that he's talking to and both of their wives go. You idiots, your kids in their same class, they play soccer together and they were like they had that, oh moment right. But just before that we had prepped for this meeting. We set it up. He got his creative director in there, he's got a sales guy in there, we've got a business plan together. We bring him this like $60 or $80 bottle of bourbon and go to this meeting like we just need 15 minutes of your time to pitch this concept, yep, and we had shot. I convinced a guy with like this red cinema camera to come out and shoot a commercial on spec for us of like what we were trying to do. And it was the Hope in Future Center in West New York and it was this place like most densely populated areas in the country and no community center. They have to go to Jersey City to get to a Y.
Speaker 3:Underserved. We're going to get jumped right. Yes.
Speaker 2:So we did, and the guy's a motivational speaker, so every soundbite was just gold, right. So that was the demo that we brought to them. We were like this is what we want to do, would you help us with this? And we didn't know what that help looked like. And they saw the video and the light bulbs went off and they immediately started talking about, like the video company that they were working with that they weren't happy about. Ah, and you showed up and then we were there and like, look at this demo with shots for $3.
Speaker 3:You know, like.
Speaker 2:And then they were like guys, guys, business opportunity here. And then they just started riling each other up Owners, italian passionate dude and they all just start getting riled up and riling him up and he's like you're going to need money to launch this thing. You're going to need like $50,000 to launch this thing, and I'm like $50,000.
Speaker 1:Wait, wait, wait. He just throws the number out.
Speaker 2:He's like yeah, you're going to need $50,000. I'm like that's more what I'm making out the news. Then they keep riling each other up and you know, start up a cost marketing this stat and the other, and he's like no, you're going to need $100,000 to start this thing up, keep going. And so that's the number that they settled on right, $100,000. And I'm like cool, you know, like the idea of an investor to me was totally foreign, right, yeah. So he said he is like I'll tell you what. They keep riling each other up. And it gets to this point where he's like you come here, you got to get, I'll put up $50,000. I'll put up half, but you got to come up with the other half and you come here with $50,000. I'm about $50,000 on the table. You know why he did that why?
Speaker 1:Because he was proving that if I'm going to invest in you, someone else has to see it too. Yeah, he was cutting his risk. Yeah, right. And he said you show up first and I'm here with you because I believe in you. That's great. I love hearing stories like that, because that means you had someone that was a true believer in you which fuels for your fire. So let me assume you got that other $50,000.
Speaker 2:So funny story. He may see like it's going to show up in a suitcase, right? No, it doesn't.
Speaker 1:If it shows up in a suitcase. You have to adjust the business model and who you're taking money from.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think I pictured it in like this little briefcase right. And so two days later, like I said, my partner was a pastor at a church and he had like a lot of it's a very small church but there was a few prominent families. So he went to one of them and he was like, hey, we're doing this thing, need $50,000. And the guy was like, ok, just like that. So two days later the guy shows up in the parking lot the agency owner and he's like how are you doing? What do you think about this stuff? And my partner just leans in. My business partner now Matt, who is my Yoda, leans in the car. He's like we got the money. And the guy says you got the money. What do you mean? You got the money? He's like we got the money. And he's like how did you get the money? Who are you people? Where did you come from? Where did you get $50,000 from? So then it turns into OK, well, it's $50,000 in retainer work paid over the series of the next year, and then eventually it ended up being like $35,000 where they cut their losses. But whatever it was, it was enough for me to have the security to leave my cushion job.
Speaker 1:It was also enough for you to believe in yourself. Yeah, right, yeah. Any startup founder that raises capital, that's a boost. And in my advice, you always want to put a little of your capital in, but you don't want to invest all of your capital in your business, because then you've double invested, you invested all of your time, which takes all your time, and you've risked your money and that's a risk profile you do not want. You don't want to have the risk profile of time costing you from putting the food on the table. Yeah, you want to be secure, right? That's why it's always a wise idea to raise capital if you can and if you have a circle of people that believe in you and your vision as well. So you did it, my friend. That is awesome. So you are funded. Yes, right. How long did that capital last, or are you still?
Speaker 2:on it. I want to say it lasted a year or two. We had mentors and stuff, but no real coach, no real guy, because they weren't like investors.
Speaker 1:They were just like Well, you had a year Yoda, but you kind of muddied the waters with. Yoda.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Right Once you bring your Yoda, your coach, your advisor, into the company. It's a little slippery of a slope because naturally it's humans going to look out for their own best interest.
Speaker 2:True, so you lose some Yoda power. Exactly, yeah, so I could see that. I could see that, yeah.
Speaker 1:Listen, we're all humans. We suffer from human condition. Right yeah, this is natural and there's no fault of anybody other than our robotic programming that we have Right, all right. So business is up and running. Are you bringing in revenue at that point? Are your investors satisfied or are they challenging you because they're not seeing a path to an?
Speaker 2:ROI. So the investor one was like we'd pay off the work in working for them in their company.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, so they were pre-hiring you.
Speaker 2:So that was one. It ended up being retainer work, Good. And then the other one was just like a family friend who was like whatever 1% yeah, and it would change later on, but like 1%.
Speaker 1:How did that?
Speaker 2:change.
Speaker 1:And you had to get into the messy stuff. There is everything that's going to be unturned.
Speaker 2:All right when we get to like the swamp in the middle of the road.
Speaker 1:We're not going through the swamp.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm just making sure. Good, oh, you want to. The National Guardsman wants to go through the swamp.
Speaker 3:He's ready.
Speaker 1:I've ruck this a million times, swimming this, drinking if I need to. I got my filtration straw. You do have a filtration straw, right? Okay, never leave home without it. No, we will go around this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the I guess if I could start with there wasn't really like a press on getting the money back.
Speaker 1:So this really was what I would call angel investing right Friends and family. They're not pressuring you. If they've invested with money they could afford to lose, your one main investor is getting something out of it. They're pre-hiring you or retainer right, so they're getting what they need anyway. So, okay, yeah, so that's good. So when did you officially start turning a?
Speaker 2:profit. So I remember we wanted to work with this one. The agency that hired us was telling us about this one nonprofit who was great, they do a fashion show and I think they really just wanted some like free video of them on the fashion show for the fundraising right Like now that.
Speaker 1:I think back on it. Free of the words.
Speaker 2:And we created this video of a guy who worked at the nonprofit, who was saved by the nonprofit and wouldn't tell his story to anybody. Like he was very protective of a story, He'd only speak on it publicly, not recorded once or twice before. But they really wanted to get his story out there and somehow we convinced him. He agreed. He liked us very much to tell his story, To which he just broke down. The sound bites were incredible, Are you allowed to share the story. Yeah, it was like a 17 year heroin addict. He's like my own mother didn't recognize me, I couldn't get people, wouldn't even get close enough to me for me to rob them, like, because that's how much this addiction took over his life. And this organization saved him, right, saved his life. And what was the organization? It was Eva's village in Patterson and total life rehabilitation Amazing. And we told this story with a little twist. He started talking about this event. They had behind the scenes fashion show and it was all of these people from a well to do area and this suit store, but like high end suit store that like suits up athletes and you get like a $3,000 suit or whatever plus right. And they put on this fashion show with a couple other local organizations in the wealthy areas of Perkin County. So all these well to do people come out and then they raise money with the fashion show right by buying tables, sponsoring, so on and so forth. We did a little bit of a twist, because he's telling his story. Then he talks about this show and we're like we're not going to finish the story. You're like what do you mean?
Speaker 1:You're leaving me on a cliffhanger.
Speaker 2:I told them, I told my business partner that I've done this thing before, called the same day at it and he's like we are definitely doing it. I'm like, whoa, it's a lot to pull off, it's a big project. It's something that I don't know if we want to start with. So he pitches it to them and they love the idea. So we shoot his story, we edit his story. And we know this was like a few, maybe a week or two before we leave us a chunk empty for B roll and we get B roll of the event happening people there at the event that day in the tent and then we edit it. I bring my computer, my whole setup and I go upstairs at this restaurant and I edit it and then we end up playing it.
Speaker 1:So that's where same day, edit comes through, I see the trick that you guys have in your industry. You're actually real Okay.
Speaker 2:But now we do same day edits, where 100% of the footage is shot the morning of why?
Speaker 1:Because it's just more authentic feeling and less well one, I must surmise it's lower cost.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's like your post-production's done that day, with a little bit of cleanup after the fact. But event producers love it because they call it a hush video, right? Nothing quiets down a crowd at an event quicker than seeing themselves on camera.
Speaker 1:Oh, for sure.
Speaker 2:So and then like, even if somebody was in the bathroom, hey, sally, you missed it, you're on camera, you're on the video. And now they were talking about it. Now you have a second gift. Now you have a follow up for the second gift. Ask as a nonprofit, where you can send it out in your email 4,000 times more likely to be engaged and open to have that, especially if they're seeing themselves.
Speaker 1:Oh, what you're doing, what you're creating for these not-for-profits is it's gold, right? It's just the material that they can help spread their word, cause their mission Now and that's not even our specialty.
Speaker 2:It's just something that was born out of just like this thing.
Speaker 1:But when it comes to these videos, are they deeply, deeply discounted because of your clientele? Or is this you mean, if this was a corporation that you were doing this for, you would see a much bigger profit?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So just to finish that first story, that was where we got our first video free, pro bono. We used that as a demo. Then that organization got approached by a regional branch of Wells Fargo with like a 30K gift Use this for something different. And they were like the CEO at the time just was like really high up at CNBC and was responsible for rebranding it. So he knew the importance of story and good storytellers. So he's like you guys do it, but just please give us more than one video. So we made a series of videos and then through that we created one. Their previous galas were like 567,000 and then we did one that was 670,000 for them, where they got like a 100K increase. But then the following year we came back the second year and they broke records and hit 1.1 million in that night with the video. Because it was like the mission moment, everything just lined up and that was like so they broke records. So we ended up finding a niche in that. So, to answer the question about working on a heavily discounted program, we typically have like a threshold you need to have an event that's bringing in 100K or more, like six figures or more, and then you'll be qualified for us to work with you.
Speaker 1:Because you want the bigger productions. By the way, look at my office it's pretty wild, huh, this is nice, alright. So now let's talk about some advice and guidance in what you do in your field, because there's certainly an audience of people that are into photography, are very into video editing now, especially with the YouTubes of the world, right, they now hear from you that there's a business here. What advice would you give someone starting out? Don't do it. Yes, the mic picked that up. That's sage advice that I think every business owner would say. Unless you're certain and sure and willing to eat hot pockets for multiple years of your life, don't start a business.
Speaker 3:You just have to really love it. You should if you have a passion.
Speaker 1:What advice would you give?
Speaker 2:I get a lot of people asking me for advice on getting into the nonprofit realm and that's where I say don't do it, because it's taking us years to figure out and you don't want to waste nonprofits money trying to figure it out. So you need that practice, that 2008 practice 2008, 2016, 2017 and then finding a formula that works will actually produce a result and raise money. But for regular video, yeah, work for free.
Speaker 1:Work for free.
Speaker 2:Do jobs you want to do.
Speaker 1:Hold on, let's change that a little. Not working for free, work for practice yes, good Free doesn't mean free. You're getting your reps.
Speaker 2:Yep, build your reel, Make mistakes, make mistakes, do it the way you want to do it. And if you're doing YouTube, one of the best pieces of advice I've seen was MrBeast was do 100 videos, create, improve one thing every video, and then you start.
Speaker 1:He has cracked the code. He now makes hamburgers. That kid, I think he's a kid. There's Kwame. Did we lose him? I think we lost one of your team. Did you need him? No, I think he's an adult right 30s.
Speaker 2:He's got to be late 20s, 26. Late 20s 26.
Speaker 1:Everything he touches turns to millions Chocolate.
Speaker 2:I've already been to his burger joint. How was it? It was good.
Speaker 3:All right.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that I was passionate about and against doing was, like you see these rappers going into the hood passing out $100 bills to everybody. That's not cool. I'm like good yeah.
Speaker 1:Good Hello. By the way, this is a moderate trail. Just letting you know.
Speaker 2:This is my second hike of the year. I usually don't hike.
Speaker 1:Now you get a score of two. We're almost to the pinnacle.
Speaker 2:The last one, I brought my three-year-old to. Yeah, it took us four hours.
Speaker 1:It was a mistake. So I hiked with my four-year-old. It was a magical experience. I recorded her Right. That's going to be a tradition Every year. I want to hear her change over audio. We're almost to the top here. It is All right. So, jason, who were some of your heroes? My heroes? Yeah, who would you? Someone? You never met them, right? Yeah, who would you aspire to be? Let me give you for instance. I've always looked at my success in having some people I aspire to be like. I didn't want to be them but I wanted to be like them. I looked up to them as heroes. So when I was a kid, heavy metal drummer, I was into music.
Speaker 3:I idolized.
Speaker 1:slash, I idolized famous drummers.
Speaker 3:I was Tom Morello Right, tom Morello yes.
Speaker 1:I'm the best guitarist to date. Right now, I think Tom is a genius because he picked up the guitar at 19 and turned it into what he has turned into as custom his own unique brand.
Speaker 2:Well, it was a quote from him that said I used to practice for eight hours a day staring up at a picture of Randy Rhodes from Ozzy Osbourne, and that was like. That was struck to me like how hard people actually work at this, because I play guitar at some point.
Speaker 3:Oh, you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean I'm not active much anymore, but like I played a lot in high school and college.
Speaker 1:It's a good shot, by the way, if you want any background scenery, don't miss it, don't skirt past it. So I dabble in the guitar. I wouldn't say I'm a guitarist, but I can pick up a guitar and play Same. Look at that.
Speaker 2:And now viewers. You actually can look at that.
Speaker 1:There we go.
Speaker 2:Make sure it's rolling.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, so good. Does that for me automatically sometimes, really, yeah, this time it didn't, because it just wanted you to show me something new, love it. We do one the other way. Oh, that's why, when you do it the other way, yeah, when you do it the other way, it goes automatically Interesting. Yeah, apple, they thought of things All right, so back to our heroes. Yes, so Tom Morello.
Speaker 2:In the film world, I'd say Christopher Nolan and Hans Zimmer is a composer. I love Hans Zimmer. He's a composer. Yeah, of course, I just listened to his movie soundtracks To get amped up Over and over again. Yeah, that's like my amped up playlist. What was your favorite soundtrack? I loved the Dark Knight for a while. Inception was good, but there's one that, yeah, you know what. It might not even be Hans Zimmer Two steps from hell. That really gets me going is like they do soundtracks, but like as if Hans Zimmer did nothing but motivational amped up soundtracks. But yeah, I love.
Speaker 1:Hans Zimmer. That is what he's known for, right, it's like energy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but there's like an orchestra that just only does that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, these are major chords.
Speaker 2:Electric guitar and stuff. But yeah, now he's. Those are some of my favorite.
Speaker 3:Great, my favorite, but yeah inspiration.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I really have any film heroes per, say, which is odd. And I'm not even like a really big movie buff, which is odd. Okay, that's okay. My partner too. Like people ask us oh favorite movie, talk about this, All our cinematographers are right, and then and have go to these film festivals and like we, just it's not really us.
Speaker 1:Well listen, the shoemaker's kids have no shoes, that's quite all right. I don't know if I'm truly using that expression, probably but, it'll work. Yeah, we'll work it. But, okay, have you ever had somebody you aspire not to be? By the way, great question on an interview, because you have your formulaic interview questions that you know the HR people just love to throw out there. Where do you see yourself in five years? I don't know, alive, right? But then you have the ones. The better interviewers they can start a dialogue, because the best person that you're ever going to hire is in front of you, right there. Yeah, and you want to know that person, so ask them yeah, you ever had someone that you just inspired or aspired not to be like?
Speaker 2:I can't really say a name per se, but Well, if it's a real person, you don't have to. No, but I mean just like someone who sells out and like, gets too far off mission and off brand. Not even off brand off mission, because we sometimes constantly need to realign ourselves with the mission, especially when there's a lot of corporate dollars you're facing and we've turned down projects that just wouldn't work for us.
Speaker 1:Why don't they?
Speaker 2:work for you If they don't align with our core values. What are your core values If they don't align with what we want to do? Like we walked away from this one project that was like 50 grand at the time, where the numbers we were throwing around. This is early on where it could have been a big difference maker and Sorry okay, but we kept advising them what not to do and they just kept wanting to pursue their own path of like this awkward sexual indigundo dialogue.
Speaker 1:For an after-profit For a robot toilet cleaner. And Wait wait, wait. Yeah, it was One how is this a not-for-profit oh this is not a non-profit.
Speaker 2:We come across corporate work, all that we still do a good amount of corporate work. But so we just market ourselves as non-profit and then it attracts the right type of for-profit who kind of come to us and say we have a good story.
Speaker 1:Are you a non-profit? Would you work with us?
Speaker 2:No, no, we're for-profit. Okay, okay, yeah. And come to find there are a ton of for-profits who work with non-profits.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course In particular. Yeah, of course, Nothing wrong with that. All right, so you do not want to do the sexual toilet cleaner? Okay? So you have core values. You do have intrinsic values.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it wasn't even because of the product, it was just because it would have been a very difficult client who wasn't open to Like the project would have been a nightmare, okay, and we had to walk away from it.
Speaker 1:So what lesson did you learn from that?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, you know, you know you're not going to figure out what your mission is, because if you don't have one like to align yourself with, then you just kind of say, well, I don't want to do this, but I really can't articulate why. You know, and so, figuring those out which you know, sometimes you're just still figuring those out even later on in business, and so you come across something new and you're like, ah, you know, this is an R-Jam.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's also knowing what you stand for, having pride in your work, not allowing your brand to be watered down, staying focused with your mission. And guess what? You don't always have to say yes to every dollar. Yeah, right, you know. If you were taking money from a criminal enterprise, well, that makes you a criminal enterprise extreme example. But if you are bringing, or a customer or a client is bringing you in and you just don't want to agree with the project or they're a tough client and it's going to hurt your brand, don't take that. It's for the greater purpose, because those little dollars today will amount to either brand destruction or brand disloyalty in the future and, as we know, once you put something out there in this world, it's out there forever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's why we want to be so responsible with our storytelling, because we know it's powerful and we don't want to use it to influence or do anything political.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:It will convince people politically one way or the other.
Speaker 1:Well, there's a right organization for every single company out there, right yeah, somebody is going to make that sexual toilet cleaner.
Speaker 2:Somebody did already and they're going to do it again.
Speaker 1:Yeah and they're willing to, but that's okay with their brand, but not with your brand, because that will end up happening If you did that. There'll be a not-for-profit. That's something that's very anti, that, and you will not have that client. And you will lose your reputation. Yeah, so good move there. You had mentioned core values, so what are those core values?
Speaker 2:So I'll touch on what our mission is and then what we don't want to do. And what our mission is to tell stories that are going to inspire others to positive action in this world, and what we don't want to do, just like I was mentioning before, is anything that's going to be too political or too divisive. We want our stories to unite, not divide, and a lot of these conversations are better had over a cup of coffee, face to face, with someone who this isn't their religion, like this politician or whoever or political thing is their religion, which is happening more and more these days. So when you have a product that works, like storytelling, that convinces people that they should give or buy in or invest or something, you have to use it responsibly.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 1:You have a power Right.
Speaker 3:And once we realize how well it works.
Speaker 1:We are like we can't do everything Well your power of influence, especially with video and sound. You can convince or be convincing to anybody that aligns with the cause and remission. You are louder than sometimes, the founder or the person who is responsible for the organization.
Speaker 3:Your story is more powerful.
Speaker 1:Hold on, I'm going to wrangle in a little. There you go. Yeah, so you have more power at your disposal, because if you think about what you're doing, you're forcing the audience to focus all of their attention for a moment in time. Not every speaker can do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it's not even about like, oh, we don't want to convince you to be one way or the other. That's part of it. But if putting that piece out there, our pieces can be like a statement and we don't want them to be a statement and a conversation ender, we want it to be conversation starters that are going to bring people closer together, and if you say, well, you feel this way and you should do this in a way that's artistic and gets people to believe in that, then you've just created a conversation ender that furthers the divide, whether the left or right, conservative or liberal Like you, further that divide when you put out work like that instead of starting a conversation. So you have to do that very carefully.
Speaker 1:But we have a very polarizing society. If you don't like my team, I hate your team. I don't care if your team's right, it doesn't matter. It's very unfortunate in our society because we lost the ability to see both sides, and intelligence really comes from the ability to see both sides of an argument and form your own conclusion. We've now turned the masses into and I'm not talking about my family, for clarity we've turned the masses into puppets that will do whatever needs to be said or done for the greater purpose of their team, and it's destroying everything in our society.
Speaker 2:Hopefully we can move past that.
Speaker 1:Maybe some video can help move past that. Yeah, true, we're in the final stretches. Hang on one second.
Speaker 2:Sean, I didn't even think about this. Why don't you clip that if you're not in the camera? If you're not in the camera, why don't you just clip this over here? That is true, we found this out in the final stretches of things, but you got freedom now I was watching you struggle and I'm like oh no.
Speaker 1:Alright, watch this slippery path here. How are your shoes doing people?
Speaker 2:I thought those were like toes and not like soccer shoe treads and I'm like who has seven toes?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so funny story. I went on a hike where I took a hike, stay on brand. I took a hike with someone a few weeks ago and she bent down. She's like, oh my god, what animal made those footprints? And I got down and I looked at him very intently and I said, ah, he was a human, it was clearly a boot, but I guess it didn't look like it though. But we had a good laugh about that Sad squash Alright. So now we've got some opening. A little bit cooler, one would say Make sure we're on the right trail here.
Speaker 2:Yep follow on the path. I started my outdoor walk like 20 minutes in. I'm so mad and Siri started it for me. It's like, are you on an outdoor walk? But it started at like 20 minutes too late.
Speaker 1:This still counts. You're getting some good steps, and do you think you're going to come back to a trail?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so. It's just a matter of either finding a sitter or waiting until the kid's old enough Front packs Front packs, back packs. Yeah, he wouldn't. He doesn't once he gets down, like he wants to stay down, so he wouldn't stay on my shoulders like too long either, and it was like right during his nap time. The first experience was bad, but it could be.
Speaker 1:It could get better. What's your most enjoyable experience about being a father?
Speaker 2:The small moments and them him getting excited to see me when I come home and we usually go to Taco Bell parking lot and parking the last spot on the left in reverse, so that we can watch the trains go by and creating memories so yeah, now he just he wants to see trains. He likes to see the gates going up and down.
Speaker 1:Do you have a train set.
Speaker 2:I think there's a wooden one, but we don't have one that's like motor, motorized or anything.
Speaker 1:Get one for the holidays. Yeah, they're great. I have those for my kids. They love it. In fact, my youngest asked me where the trains today. This morning she said, daddy, where are the trains?
Speaker 2:Yeah, he would probably love it.
Speaker 1:How often are you recording your son?
Speaker 2:Not as much as I should. We do stories and stuff when we're out doing something, but you know what? We do a good amount of it. Well, it would be better about documenting my wife with him too.
Speaker 1:I was worried that you lived through a lens.
Speaker 2:No, no, it's not enough personally, because I do it all day.
Speaker 1:Look at you, you're like a pro you didn't even fall in.
Speaker 2:I grew up in the woods, basically.
Speaker 1:It's that wooded.
Speaker 2:My grandparents had a house with acres and acres of property in this little town called Shikshinni, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1:Shikshinni Pennsylvania. Shikshinni Shikshinni.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:And I can guarantee you, the high schoolers called it Shikshinni.
Speaker 2:Well, mom was one of the high schoolers, though probably not. But whenever you say the name of the town, you have to say Shikshinni Wilkes Barrow, because Wilkes Barrow?
Speaker 1:People know Wilkes Barrow. Of course yes.
Speaker 2:But I always thought the town was Shikshinni, wilkes Barrow, and then I realized it's just Shikshinni but no one knows that town. So you have to say the town is 20-ish minutes away, so people know the area where they go into town, to the Walmart, got it, and to whatever is in town. But like this was his backyard and there was like, even if you, I discovered more of it as I got older and explored more, and then like went up over up to a hill, found a cabin and an outhouse, then went down over that hill and found a stream and like a nice pond, but just nobody knew about. And then found like an old beat up car, found out that used to be his car and I was like, well, now I feel bad for breaking the windows.
Speaker 1:Oh, it was bound to happen. He did put a car in the woods In the woods, yeah. So it was meant to be Right. So maybe that's where your mysteries and wonders came from the fact that you were able to explore at such a young age.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's true too, whenever there is these patches of ferns in the woods that like if you took a stick to them and you'd hit the bottom, they'd just kind of tumble over yes, topple over yes, and so my cousin is called.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love it called Goombas.
Speaker 2:That's what we call them, because we would pretend that we were where I grew up.
Speaker 1:That was a different term for a different thing, but okay from Mario, from the video game, not like okay. There's a little more emphasis on the salable of the one that I'm thinking of, but okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:I get you a little yeah. But no, we hit them with a stick and they would topple over and we pretend that we were like Ninja Turtles or something in the woods.
Speaker 1:Got it, we'll call them Hoopas, hoopas yeah that's better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we would. Just we would clear whole paths of them in the woods. Yeah, spend a lot of time there until fiddle, fiddle heads, that's what they're called fiddle heads.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you flick them and they would curl up. I knew it would come to me. By the way, this is quickly growing to be one of my favorite trails.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're liking it.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, All right, I don't know if you guys are liking it, but I'm liking it. I like the challenge.
Speaker 2:But now, every time I'm on a hike, I'm gonna want to document it as you should it as you should, why not?
Speaker 1:We are a collection of memories, right? And the saddest thing to me, it's not death. I don't fear death. I fear losing my memories. So if you can document them, hopefully you can either jog your memory or relive them at a later point. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. All right, this climb is getting me, even getting me. It's a steep look. So what other adventurous locations have you recorded on?
Speaker 2:I don't know if there's been too many adventurous. I've actually recorded an actual video for a backpack that was getting released on the hike, and it was pouring down rain on this hike, so we put a trash bag on the camera and switched it to 120 frames per second, all right, and you could see the rain coming down and like colliding in super slow motion. That's cool, so of course I cut it to the beat.
Speaker 1:That's cool when the rain collided yeah. Hey, listener, thanks for hiking along with us. Discover more episodes at. I took a hike comm. Or to recommend an adventurous guest, apply to be a sponsor, discover books along the trail, or to simply drop us a line. If I still had my company, I would be doing nature walks with them because I would conduct meetings while walking. We were in New York City so we would take a couple of blocks. Difficult conversations are a lot easier when you're moving.
Speaker 2:Oh, I know that Creativity I used to have them Yep park and we just go on walks or just do a loop around a park and that's where we'd have all the hard combos. What were some of those conversations like? Just anything financial. Ah, we're going with the company big changes.
Speaker 1:Yep, who is the leader in that? Is that you, you have to say because you're in it full-time, or does this?
Speaker 2:yeah, wait, right now it's it's kind of me making moves, but I always consult any major moves With him and then sometimes I end up coming back with a different decision. Yep, now just hiring a commission sales rep. Okay, this past week I had him on the call and he was like he's usually the wait, we don't need this right now. And he was like yes, pause, yesterday, hundred percent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, we're doing that way. Place. You should be at highest elevation on this one. Are you nervous for the day that your partner comes on full-time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, cuz, then it's just number one. It's well now it's like the onus of another. A family of six is Sometimes I tend to put that a lot of that weight on my shoulders. You know worse.
Speaker 1:But that's good, that's not bad weight. Yeah, long as it doesn't consume you, that's weight you can focus on yeah, sometimes it can be consuming, okay so you have to work on not making that so consuming. Yeah, because that can blind you to make bad decisions like Taking the sexual toilet bowl Right and I keep coming back to that because one it's funny.
Speaker 2:Robot toilet cleaner. The commercial they wanted to do had sexual undertones, but I don't think they realized. Okay, just to clarify that.
Speaker 1:Okay, but but if you Feel pressure to the point of responsibility for others and it really consumes you, you're gonna make bad calls in your business, yeah, so Don't let it consume you, because you are on the right track and you are following your right, the right guidance and wisdom. So, with that being said though, back to when your partner starts full-time is there a plan for that? Do you have a date or a milestone? Kpi maybe? I'd say KPI got how far?
Speaker 2:away are you? I'd say about you know, I don't know, because it was like Two years ago, it was like 2023 and that seems so far away, and it was like first part of 2023, second part, maybe the fourth part, so who knows? I'm thinking this Q4 though. Well, I'll ask you this, and I also want to be respectful of that, because he still has a full-time job that wants to keep him there. So, of course, of course.
Speaker 1:But obviously if you get to the milestone right. Yeah he's gonna follow his passion right. Full-time job or not, it doesn't matter. This is what he's doing. He's creating this with you. So you're anticipating your partner Coming in. Do you believe when he joins you will form like Voltron and create a super team, or is there hesitation that it might change some of the power dynamic?
Speaker 2:Well, this was what we were in the beginning, where we were like a super team just the two of us. So it'd be interesting to say to see now we've built or I built this team underneath it, and then there's a culture here and everything of when that typically most people just kind of fall in right In the right spot. We've been lucky so far, yeah, but and then also good interviewing, and if they haven't worked out, you know. But It'll be interesting to see how the culture shifts.
Speaker 1:Yes, a little bit because the culture will shift. Yeah, you have a new figurehead? Yeah, um is. Is he fearful of, potentially, what could happen to the business? I'm worried.
Speaker 2:I don't think more. So what's happened can happen to the business. But what happens if he takes another leap and it doesn't work out this time? Because we did the first time and it wasn't enough to support both of us? Okay, so if we do it again, I think that's more of his fear.
Speaker 1:You could allay those fears with milestones. So, yeah, one thing that I would, I would implore you to do, is build an actual milestone, base it around revenue and profit, mm-hmm. So therefore, you can allay those fears, because now you'll know that you'll be able to support every aspect Financially that you need to. Yeah, right, and then, obviously, based on feelings that you can, you can move that in or out. Right, you know you're about to land a very big project. You need the extra support. Yeah, by all means, make a decision there. But if you do it Logistically, with numbers behind it, you can remove some of that fear. Yeah, yeah true. Now you know. The one thing that will change, though, and you're gonna have to discuss that is who does what? What breast responsibility? Who makes certain decisions which I'm sure you've had these conversations before, but you know. Hiring and firing decisions, right. Joint effort, right. What about managerial decisions? We're corrective actions.
Speaker 3:Uh-huh.
Speaker 1:Who's responsible for that and that's. These are conversations that you need to have ahead of time, because you know, all too often partnerships fail, like marriages fail, because of the lack of communication and the lack of understanding of each other's responsibility. Right, I'm sure, with your wife. You're not there yet, where you truly have to parent your son for mistakes. But who's gonna be the bad guy? Who's gonna be the good guy? Right, right, and sometimes it flip-flops, but you have to be in agreement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then we've. We've done a lot of that where you know he'll ask us stuff already and then I'll ask the other one. It's like what did mama say?
Speaker 3:and making sure, that we're in unison on that sort of thing. But yeah, he is.
Speaker 2:But I know a lot of that role stuff, finding roles, was Worked out. A lot of it was worked out early on where I would just kind of lean on him for stuff but not realizing about you know the almost decade plus the business experience I already had Before bringing him on, where that would just kind of be like instincts and I'd be like now let's not take this job or, oh, we could push for more money. And where he'd be like no, gotta take this, got a sell for this, and I'm like there's more money here. And then sure enough there'd be more money or sure enough it'd be a troubled client Because and I didn't realize it at the time, but there was warning signals that were there all along when talking to Potential clients and stuff that he was able to pick up on. That I was able to pick up on. And Just have even though he had more book knowledge than me. I had like that instinct of like yeah, of like how, hey, they asked for the price in the first three minutes of the call they're probably not going to be a good fit because we're bigger than most and more expensive than most. So you have some good advice in that if your prospective client is asking for price ahead of time.
Speaker 1:That is their main driver. You need to have core values to understand your audience and who your right client is the right fit. Some companies might that might be their core values. We are the most competitive, cost or the least expensive. If that's the case, take that client. But if you are typically the more high value because you can't be the cheapest and the most expensive. You because you can't be the cheapest and the best right. So if you are more high value and your client starts talking about cost up front, you start saying we might not be the right fit for you. Yep, client, prospective clients, going to be shocked, yeah. And then you're going to say well, the reason why is we're not a price Sensitive organization, yeah, so I don't want to waste your time. By the way, you might find yourself surprised and that just might be the first thing that someone asks Mm-hmm. And then they'll correct you and say oh, don't worry about the price, we just we just wanted to understand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't know why your client. Well, I've been on that where I would just say, oh, I got a guy for you that you could use and then whoa, whoa, wait, what about you? And I'm like look, dude, this is Big project and I don't know if you're ready for that, especially if this is your first foray into video.
Speaker 1:So that's right video is not inexpensive. You have to be invested, but you should look at it as a vehicle that will give you an ROI. So let me pivot now. Do you believe that you are successful? I say yes.
Speaker 2:But for me and my standards, like by the definition of like, let's say making more than you spent or having like recurring revenue or having a profit margin and stuff, I'd say yes. But like by my standard of where I want to be and in the company, and like Out of a lot of the day to day and the profit margin that are profits that I want to see, I'd say no, well do you believe that you personally are successful? Yes, because. I get to come to work and do what I love every day, and I have a strong team, and that has not always been the case of just having a strong team that I can lean on.
Speaker 1:And what is your definition of success? Um, right here, what is your definition of success? I don't know what's your definition of success.
Speaker 2:It changes because it used to be just making more than we've spent, right, and Now what I see the possibility is I'm like there's a lot more out there, that's right around the corner, and so I don't know if I can define it just yet and I don't know if I can even let you know when I get there. Maybe I'm too hard on myself and I'll never get there, I don't know. But, um, I know what the possibilities are.
Speaker 1:So Well, I believe you are there. You're a good human. You have a good cause, good mission, great product, fantastic father. Thanks to you, you hiked a very challenging trail. So, jason Elinger, while most people went to work today, we, as this team around us, went to hustle, so thank you for being part of this episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks for having me on. Yeah, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Next time on, I Took a Hike. We explore new heights and take a deep dive on this 100th mile episode with Kenny Heitner.
Speaker 3:I think one of the challenges businesses have people have Is they're in their own world and they they're inward looking. So I can't tell you how many times people came to me and said this guy doesn't do anything.
Speaker 1:Yep and I said oh, that's the worst when you start having tattletales.
Speaker 3:Well, I don't even know if it was tattling or they just don't understand what that person's doing. Yeah, they see it from their perspective, from their world, and what they didn't do, not what they did do.
Speaker 1:Oh, what a hike it was. Till next time I'm Darren mass. Thanks for listening.
