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
Andrew Ruditser - They "SEO" me Rollin'
Listen in as we venture on an enlightening journey with Andrew Ruditser, the trailblazing co-founder of MaxBurst. He opens up about his unique experience growing up as a first-gen American from Russia, his early passion for computers, and his journey to entrepreneurship. He shares insightful lessons on the importance of valuing one's own time, the value of having a firm business agreement, and how he navigated his path from community college to the creation of a successful business venture.
As we move through the chapters, we further discuss the role of partnerships in business success, and Andrew offers some sage advice based on his own experiences with MaxBurst. He also speaks on the complexities of dealing with clients and the importance of setting expectations to avoid scope creep. Andrew and I also compare business challenges to those of raising children, emphasizing the need for understanding and good relationships in both arenas.
In the final chapters, we explore the exciting world of Artificial Intelligence and its implications for business and job growth. We ponder on the difference between AI as a tool and AI as a threat, and how the use of AI can be detected. The conversation gets more interesting as we delve into the potential impacts of AI technology on the modern economy, and the idea of Universal Basic Income as a possible solution. So tune in and join us on this thrilling exploration of entrepreneurship, technology, and the intricacies of navigating business and life.
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Alright, Andrew Ruditzer, are you okay with being recorded for a podcast?
Speaker 2:I am Darren Mass.
Speaker 1:Well, there goes that liability. 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 venture into the remarkable life of Andrew Ruditzer, a trailblazer who co-founded MaxBurst and continues to inspire as a visionary entrepreneur. Our topics include experiences as a first-gen American from Russia, invaluable website and SEO tips, the mysteries of AI's destiny and unveiling the crucial role of the prompt whisperer in our dynamic world. Hike along with this adventure-packed conversation. When I took a hike with Andrew Ruditzer, 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. So nobody knows who you are but me, which is the beauty of this episode. You and I go way back. It's going to be an interesting episode because I've known you since the days of your. It's been a while, it's been a minute, as the youth would say and we go back to college and what I will say is you became very successful throughout those years. So we're going to hear that success journey and we're going to hear all about Andrew Ruditzer, maybe it's best to start.
Speaker 2:I grew up in Brooklyn in a very Russian family. I grew up speaking Russian before I ever even learned how to speak English. I actually learned how to speak English when I went to school. So over the years I lost a little bit of that skill and then gained it back and I moved to Long Island in eighth grade. But it was really funny to me coming from Brooklyn and just being around a lot of different types of people and situations in Long Island where I actually was. It was funny to be tested by some of these kids at the time. But what happened was I ended up actually making a lot of friends and really loving living there and growing up there as well. So I went to high school afterwards and at that point my dad and my mom mostly my dad will kind of talk to me about so what interests you? What do you think you want to do? Where are you headed? I mean, who the hell knows these answers?
Speaker 1:At 14 years old. No, I was already in high school at 16.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I always had a passion for computers. I actually love technology and when I started in high school I kind of played around with computers a little bit more. Obviously things got a little bit more sophisticated and my uncle, Dimitri, who was an engineer I was always fascinated actually going to his house he always had really cool computers and he would take them apart and I was into these parts and I asked a lot of questions. So him and I would go on a lot of computer shows. They used to have them in like Coliseums and stadiums. They used to have these big computer shows where people would go. I don't even know if they have them anymore. I don't see a reason why they would. You could buy everything on Amazon and other sites, but we used to go to these shows and we used to just buy these parts and we used to put together computers and I got really good at it and I really liked it. So I started selling them. When I was probably junior year in high school. I was building computers for people and it was fun and I loved it and this was before you could really use the internet to its full capacity. So I used to just learn a lot of this stuff myself, figure things out. So I had a little small side business, Little side hustle. I was building computers for people, getting like little orders, Nothing crazy, but listen, I actually made a couple of bucks, but I was always also the type of kid that would. I always had a job. I worked at numerous jobs. One summer I worked in Jones Beach. I was flipping burgers. I hated that job. Then I got a job at Walbam supermarket where I was stocking shelves. I hated that job too. I mean, basically I hated all these jobs but you got to do them. I worked at a pet store, but anyway I was making a little bit of money, learning how to get a paycheck, paying taxes. I was paying for a car and a little bit of money to go out. Then, senior year, I started to try to apply for colleges, but my grades weren't great so I didn't really get accepted to a lot of colleges or anything that would be, in my opinion, worthwhile to really go. To my parents, my dad especially, advised me not to make any choices. He said that he wouldn't help me with college because of my grades. So I ended up going to a community college for one year, which, looking back at it, was one of the best things I ever did. That's right, it was one of the best things I ever did. It was a great time for me to really figure out exactly what I wanted to do, not spend a lot of money on figuring that out and experimenting. I did really well in the community college for one year. What year school was that? That was national community college.
Speaker 1:That's right, and I also did a tour. Yeah, I did a year tour there. If it wasn't for that, you and I would never have met. That's true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, things happen for a reason.
Speaker 1:So well, let's take a pivot to the next chapter. You were hustling all the way up. You make it from NCC. You apply to Rochester Institute of Technology for IT. You meet me in PacSun. I do. We become BFF? That's right. All right, we even have the matching necklace with the hearts that fit together. I mean, maybe you do. Oh wait, I forgot to give that to you in 1999. We go to school together, we party together. Yeah, we had some good times.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:We were in a fraternity together. We exited that fraternity together.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Long stories there that we don't need to go through. Yeah, but no, we enjoyed our time. You leave college to go start your own business, which is where you currently are. All right.
Speaker 2:So I left college actually to. I was working for a company that I had a co-op for.
Speaker 1:That's right, you did a short stint at this company.
Speaker 2:They hired me right out of college. They gave me a pretty decent salary. For what? Was it 2002?
Speaker 1:What was that salary? 62,000. That was phenomenal and it's a phenomenal salary and that has partially contributed or attributed to the fact that you had work experience.
Speaker 2:Yes, so the difference is like you ended up going and living on your own. You had an apartment in Manhattan. Actually, no, you were in Hoboken, I think.
Speaker 1:I was in Queens first. Queens, that's right. I lived. I made it to Queens for a month and realized that commute was horrible, so I figured out how to stretch and move to Manhattan.
Speaker 2:We both got jobs. Originally we were working for a company, so I ended up coming home for a little bit where the goal was to work, save money and be able to go out on my own. I was working for this company for about, I would say, close to maybe a year and a half to two years, and they treated me really well. I got a lot of experience there. I worked at a lot of really interesting places. One of them I'll never forget was the Department of Health in New York City. I was commuting a lot back and forth to the city. One of the days that I was actually commuting to the Department of Health was during 9-11. I was on the train heading into the city and we stopped at Jamaica Station. We never, obviously got in. We stopped at Jamaica Station, got out and then ended up walking back. So I was working for this company for a little while, got a lot of experience. One of the biggest things that I the takeaways was the consulting aspect of it. So what I realized was, I think mostly was how time is. Time equals money, and I never really understood that. I think the first time I really truly understood that was when I was working for them because they were billing my time by the hour, so you physically.
Speaker 1:Saw time as money.
Speaker 2:I physically saw it. I mean they were. I was keeping time sheets, I was doing very simple things as far as record keeping and obviously their people on their end would do whatever they needed to do to basically present the reports to the customer. But on my end I was keeping track of my time. I was getting a salary. So it really didn't matter how much time I was working, I was getting the same salary. But I started kind of realizing, you know, that important aspect of life when you're doing this is that time is money. It's very valuable and you should not take that for granted because you can't take time back.
Speaker 1:So we hear that all the time. I mean that's a recurring theme with everything and you know, we really do have to start thinking that way is that when you are running a business, every minute you are spending on a proposal is part of SG&A selling, general and administrative. It's part of the cost of acquisition of a client and you have to be mindful of that. And sometimes, if you are working on trying to get a prospective account and you're just spinning your wheels, it's not wrong to ask the customer what their timeline is for them to commit, because your time is valuable, your time is money. You're not going to be afraid to ask a client to say before we go any further, are you committed to moving forward with us, Because we've spent a lot of time working on your proposal, your account, your objectives.
Speaker 2:I feel like a lot of people are almost embarrassed or nervous, don't know how to approach it, don't know how to tell people that their time is valuable. They almost to me. It almost feels like a lot of people think that they're insulting someone or it's a rude thing to say.
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 or to simply drop us a line.
Speaker 2:At this point in my life I am learning that time is important, but I'm still kind of not really confident in pitching my time as being valuable.
Speaker 1:And I think that that is I'm looking on building that up, that comfort level.
Speaker 2:I think that the people starting out at that age around there should have someone that really kind of tries to mentor them and explains to them that time is important and not everyone's going to value your time equally. You have to be realistic with your skills and your time. But the more comfortable you get with selling yourself and your value, the more you'll get out of it. That's right. Okay, so I ended up leaving this consulting company. I was already 24. There was a guy that I was working with who won't use names for this, but he was older than me, definitely more experienced. He was working for the same company. He decided to leave on his own and start his own consulting company. Now I had a skill set that he needed. I was developing in this platform and he was able to land a client for this new consulting company that he got and he asked me to come along. So I ended up speaking to my dad heavily about this and I said, pa, I'm thinking about going out on my own, I'm going to give up this salary, I'm going to go out and I'm going to try this consulting business with this person that I've been working with for almost two years. What do you think? And he said, all right, we'll order the terms. I told him, the terms that were promised to me at the time. He said to me, andrew, if you're going to do anything right now, you should do it now. You should take this risk now. You don't have a family, you're not married, you don't have kids, your overhead is super low. Just do it. Just do it. That was his advice to me.
Speaker 1:Recurring advice. That was the same advice that my uncle gave me when I started to contemplate going out on my own. That is sage advice that even if you know that advice, you still need someone you trust to tell it to you To advise you.
Speaker 2:If he wouldn't have basically said that, I would have never done it.
Speaker 1:I believe that to be true, because your father, or in any case of a mentor, is basically saying you have a soft landing. What have you got to lose? Your brain needed to hear that. You needed to make that connection, and that was the extra confidence to go out on your own.
Speaker 2:And I don't know if you remember that far back, but I consulted with you as well and we spoke about it and I don't remember. I think you were at that point already starting something as well, but my timeline is a little fuzzy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think this was when I was still employed at a company that I really loved working for. I didn't have my concept. You started your business way before mine and, by the way, I looked up to you for starting that and that's what helped me build courage to start a business as well. By the way, you are now officially a Times Square.
Speaker 2:I see we're approaching a pretty busy area. No you're at Times Square oh, this is cool, I didn't see that. Thanks, so, um. So my dad helped me out, you know, with this decision. Um, he didn't convince me of anything, he just guided me into, you know, taking that, taking that that path to try it out. So I went on board um and we got a little office and we had some clients and we were doing some work, but it was struggling. We weren't making any money, uh, and it was just just wasn't going anywhere. But what I learned was that it's very important that if you decide that, if you go into anything, that you have a firm agreement, a contract, not just an understanding, and people go to business school, but I don't think there's any substitute for when you actually do this yourself in the real world. That's right. That was my second major lesson.
Speaker 1:Rit, and failing and getting your butt kicked will teach you a much harder lesson and a much better lesson versus just sitting in a classroom and studying in notebooks. Now you need to do both, but getting kicked in the butt, that's going to do a lot more for you.
Speaker 2:So I definitely got kicked in the butt, that's for sure. I definitely got to go kick in the ass, um, because what happened was towards the end I started noticing that my supposed partner at the time was making deals with other people trying to partner up Side hustle, and I was totally out of the picture. So I didn't really have anything, any firm agreements or anything like that. So I just I couldn't take it anymore. So obviously I just I just left. But I learned a really valuable lesson from that too. I think that was my second valuable lesson in this journey that do not do anything that you value in business without a firm agreement or a contract.
Speaker 1:That is right. Legal Contracts are important. Even if you are working with your best friend, a family member, contracts remind you of the things you agreed upon at a moment in time. Wow, that was slippery. Yeah, um, technique. Come on Forward Quick, weight forward and kick up.
Speaker 2:There you go, yeah Little climb, yeah, but it is still moderate. So I ended up leaving and from there I started completely on my own. I could have searched for a job and I thought about it, but I decided that I was going to try to continue this on. Whew, it's nice, weirded Well from that little climb, yeah, especially since it was slippery.
Speaker 1:We got a couple of tricks up our sleeve, but this is beautiful, all right. So let's continue on with our journey. You learned some hard lessons.
Speaker 2:I learned a hard lesson, but a very, really valuable one. So we so I left this office that I was working with this guy, that you know that I thought we started something together and it was ugly. When I left, we uh we parted ways in an ugly way. I mean there was some cursing and you know there was some visions in my mind of of basically knocking him out, but you know the normal stuff. And I ended up leaving and I ended up kind of at a crossroads where I sort of was dabbling like looking for a job and maybe trying to start my own little consulting office. So I decided to do that, start my own little consulting office. So I realized I actually bought a domain name in 97 called maxburstcom and I had this domain name for a long time. Great name. So I decided that's going to be the name of my consulting company. So I started maxburst technologies and it was really an IT company and I was doing at the time what I know best, which is, you know, uh, break, fix, server repair, helping people with email, just IT stuff. I actually grew that um, pretty uh, pretty well at the time. I had over a hundred clients all across Long Island, uh, some in Brooklyn, some in Queens, but I couldn't scale it really well and I kind of hated my life because I was on cold, 24 seven.
Speaker 1:Don't do something you hate, I was just getting a living, but you have to do things you don't like in the beginning while you're building a brand.
Speaker 2:I was making money. It was the first time. That was the first time that I think I made some money where I was like, okay, this could definitely be lucrative and I was trying to scale it. I was trying to do the right thing, but it just wasn't working out for me. I was like I said I'm cold, 24, seven. I couldn't get a really good process down, so I sort of decided to pivot in about 2000 and uh, seven, close to 2008,. I started to pivot because a lot of my clients were actually asking me for websites and I'm a developer but I'm not a designer. I have really no artistic abilities other than I could tell you what I like when I see it. I'm building websites, really kind of simple ones, because I'm I'm a programmer by trade. So I knew how to, uh, how to code websites and I just loved it Like it was. It was just I don't know, it's like it was just a breath of fresh air is the way I could describe it. It was just everything about it, like creating for me actually was very rewarding. It was a passion for you, I don't, you see, but it was a passion that I didn't really know that I was going to ultimately end up it. So you had a challenge that fueled you or yearning for more. I was creating websites for. I started out creating websites for small businesses, all right. So there was a cool factor at first we started out with small businesses that probably had a either approaching a million in revenue or a little over. So you know, they they had. It was a little bit more of a business that had some revenue, that was looking for a digital presence online or professional digital presence and they were looking for a small agency to work with and we were at the time perfectly positioned in our area to be that agency. And people started finding us and I started running into a challenge because I'm not a designer and I do not have kind of that artistic capability to actually take the website to a whole level, because obviously people know to create a website is is a design and obviously development and there's a lot of strategies in between that as well, but you have to make it look right. So I met my partner, who's my business partner today, one of my really good friends, close friends, love. This guy met him in closer to 2008, 2007, 2008, through a mutual friend of mine and he started helping me out with some projects for design. He was working full time for another company, but he was. He also had that kind of entrepreneurial fire and drive in him and he wanted to take on side gigs and his name was Donnie.
Speaker 1:There you go. I know Donnie very well. Yes, he's a pretty cool human.
Speaker 2:He is one of the best, yeah, humans, he's, he's one of the good ones, for sure, that's right. And he's been your partner. For how many years he's been? He's been my partner for over 15 years.
Speaker 1:And when you formed this partnership, you already had a company. So walk me through the process of offering equity to someone who you didn't really know, Okay.
Speaker 2:So when we basically agreed that we were going to work together because I was inundating him with work and he came to me and said, Andrew, I can't do this anymore. I can't work full time and take on all of these projects we were getting busy and it was essentially in the beginning just the two of us and maybe a couple of freelancers. So he made the decision to go off on his own with me, to leave his job and start MaxBurst fully together. Now, at the time it wasn't really much of a risk to me to become an equal partner with him because I was starting out the whole web design and development end of it. So I can't even really think of the IT part of it.
Speaker 1:All right, so you're starting out with zero, essentially. Yeah, so offering equity to someone who quickly built your trust was not such a threat to you.
Speaker 2:You saw that as equity in exchange for actual value Right, and it's not like we actually had customers already and there was interest so we were starting out, but it's not like we just sat there waiting for the phone to ring. We actually had real work already Over time, short period of time. There was just this trust and this bond of working together and after a while that feeling of like he's not going to be the one or he's going to leave me kind of just went away pretty quick. I mean, we were sitting in a grime office. At first it wasn't anything nice that you would want to show up to work with amenities. We weren't really making that much money to keep somebody coming in Every day. He came in early, he proved himself, he showed up, yeah, and it's not like. But he had the same passion and drive you did, he did. He really wanted to make this work we both did. It was just the two of us really in the beginning, like most, I guess, really small businesses that start out early on I realized that that's that he's definitely the person that we can grow the company together. You know, him and I, and we also have the perfect personalities, I think, in business, or at least maybe in general over all businesses, but especially in mine. When it comes to skill set, I'm technical, more business oriented. He had the artistic drive and the vision of the company from a brand standpoint, how he wanted clients to look. He's also very process driven, where I'm a little bit more chaotic.
Speaker 1:So that's important. Right there is that when youin a way you picked your partner, you did not have to move forward with Donnie. But what helped you create this great company and this hustle and drive from the beginning was the fact that he did all of the things that you weren't great at. Those were notdesign was not your strength right, so he filled that gap in, whereas the sales aspect I know Donnie very well. He can sell, but he's not going to be the guy that's going to pitch and hunt for leads and go find new business where you are. So you guys have this perfect marriage and I will say, in knowing both of you, you do have great personality alignment where there's no ego involved. There's no, I worked harder than you versus the other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that never, honestly, all these years. I can't even remember that statement that you just made. I can't even remember one time that ever came up, ever in the long period of time that we've been working together where I felt like I was doing more. I can't say anything actually from on his standpoint, but we both worked really hard to in the beginning and to build this company up.
Speaker 1:Now would you say by having a partner, it helped boost your confidence and your ability to be more successful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1:Do you think you would have been?
Speaker 2:successful without Donnie? No, I don't. I attribute all my success so important when ever we got. The point that we got to and wherever we're going is definitely equally shared.
Speaker 1:And that right there is your secret sauce. And that's not even a hesitation for me to say that that's your secret sauce, the fact that you could fully admit, without ego, that your partner helped boost you, you helped boost him and you do it together. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Now, not every partnership works out, unfortunately. I coach several clients where the partnerships have dissolved a long time ago and it's like a bad marriage and a lot of that has to do with ego, but the majority of that has to do with the it's not fair mentality that us humans have, where one partner works a heck of a lot harder than the other and the other one is lazy, and that, from what I've noticed, stems from too many friends starting businesses together. One friend is stronger than the other, that friend is pulling the weight for both and the it's not fair mentality kicks in into resentment and it destroys the company. I'm not saying that you shouldn't go into business with a friend, but you better make sure that your friend does an equal amount of work prior and not make an excuse for they'll improve over time because it doesn't work out that way. Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. All right. So, max Burst, web design. What else do you do besides design websites?
Speaker 2:Well, look, in the beginning that's what it was. It was just doing websites, building them, designing them, launching them. The company has definitely evolved a lot in the services and offerings I mean we do. We're a true digital agency. We do everything, from strategy, growth, branding, messaging, positioning we basically do everything. When it comes to a business needing a partnership with a digital agency, you just gonna hold this up for a little bit For success. You should. It's a great rock.
Speaker 1:This is very nice, very cool Glacial deposit. So you do everything in a digital agency world. You basically are the outbound view of a company.
Speaker 2:We basically try to position ourselves strategically as a digital agency for companies that are looking to grow and that are looking to better manage the digital presence online, whether it's collecting leads or trying to just kind of offer that more professional messaging when people land on their website. I mean, listen, today I don't care what business you're in. I mean, whenever you're trying to find a company, whether it's big or small, you're gonna go on their website and you're gonna take a look at them and if it's hokey, if it just doesn't look the part, then that's the first impression that it'll give you when you start to want to do business with them. So what does a good website cost these days? Well, that's a very tough question to answer.
Speaker 1:Well, I ask tough questions.
Speaker 2:Because it's like asking how much is a cost to drive a car today.
Speaker 1:Okay, and I actually let's take a step back.
Speaker 2:And I say that to a lot of people.
Speaker 1:Let's take a step back this way. If you can't tell me what it's going to cost for a good website today, I could tell you what we start at.
Speaker 2:So, look, you can do it yourself, which I encourage. A lot of people that are starting out that are very budget oriented, they should try it. Attempt it themselves. Now, again, I mean, most people can't do it, it's just the way it is. They just cannot figure it out or they don't have the time. They're focused on their own businesses. So what does it cost to? You can hire a freelancer. Maybe for a few thousand dollars or so, you could probably get a kind of a pre-canned looking website. Okay, no strategy or anything like that, just you know, here's the template. I'll slap some content. Today it's AI generated content.
Speaker 1:We're going to talk about AI in a little bit.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I got a lot of insights on that. So I would definitely say to try it out. If it's an e-commerce site, shopify, you could try that yourself too. And then, when a company gets to a certain level and they have much more strict requirements and they work with, they have an internal marketing department, they're going to align themselves with the digital agency that could bring their vision to life.
Speaker 1:All right. So what is the starting point for a custom website?
Speaker 2:Well, for us the starting point is 25,000. Okay, 25,000.
Speaker 1:For other agencies it's different.
Speaker 2:So, across the board, what does 25,000 get you? So 25,000 gets you project management, dedicated project manager, a team which is a web developer, a designer Okay so this is steep, yeah, and you get strategy. You're basically paying. You're hiring an agency like Max Burst for a turnkey process. The only thing that we rely on the clients for is just their feedback and be involved in the project, because we don't want to surprise anyone. We want to be able to kind of share in the vision. So we have a way of doing projects and we just asked that the client is involved in it. Okay, so you're getting a team. Awesome, take a look at that. We're not crossing that already. Yeah, we are. Oh, really, yeah, that's interesting. Why is that interesting? So I don't know, is that a bridge or just a bunch of sticks that are laying on the ground A bunch of logs across water, okay.
Speaker 1:Ready to have a?
Speaker 2:little water? No, all right, but I'd rather not step into it, so don't, I'll try. Do you want me to go first or you? I'll try it. Okay, is there a certain way that you would do this?
Speaker 1:There is a technique, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Just don't fall. Yeah, okay, so if that's the technique, then oh look, do you see that Fish? Look, it's a little frog. There's frogs everywhere, do you see it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Did you notice that frog? Just so you can grab that branch and not fall.
Speaker 2:Well, I just wanted to try to position myself a little better. Gotcha, gotcha, listen, I mean, it's not like I do this three, four times a week Like you do.
Speaker 1:No, but you know balances, everything All right. So 25 grand gets you a true custom site.
Speaker 2:Yeah. When we first started out, we were charging about $350 to $500 a website. Okay, Wow, that's pretty low. Well, it was a much different website, yeah, different process, and we were just trying to make ends meet. Yeah, yeah, but that's what we were starting at, and getting those kind of smaller sites and those dollar amounts actually did get us a lot of clients.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, you built up a business, you built up a brand, but you were more accessible to work.
Speaker 2:Your volume of clients, but we were working nonstop, nonstop. But that's what you need in a business, and the business was not growing. Yeah, so it did put us on the map somewhat, which helped, but we quickly realized that we're not going to build anything if we're going to offer the same price point for the amount of work that we're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as your competitors as well. All right, so what's the most expensive website?
Speaker 2:you've ever done. Some of these projects turn into over seven figures, oh well, over a million for sure. Wow In billable hours Pretty lucrative. Yeah, yeah, it's a very difficult business to run because you are you're working in, like most businesses, but you're working in with a lot of challenges. You have the challenges of the client, obviously, and the requirements and the expectations. You also have the challenges and the fact that it's a creative field. So you're not selling a, you're selling a service. Yes, you're definitely not selling a product. Yeah, you're selling a service, but the service is very subjective to the design. People don't appreciate sometimes what happens in the background from a development standpoint. They just want the thing to work, so they look at it more from a front end standpoint. So sometimes you know you'll get a client that's just really picky and just doesn't know what they want, and it takes experience Does that happen often.
Speaker 1:We're clients just they have an idea, but then they don't really know what they want.
Speaker 2:So good question it does and through experience and doing this so many times and just working through it, you have to have a process, you have to be confident and you have to handhold the client. You have to make the client feel that they hired you and you are the boss.
Speaker 1:Okay, Not the other way around. So your process is you really lead the charge? You have to, you have to, you have to part-hitting questions where you're asking the clients to describe their needs, wants, desire for the site and then your level setting expectations, but you're helping bring the story out of them.
Speaker 2:Yes, in the beginning we made so many mistakes that would drive a lot of businesses to go out of business or just to the point where they would just throw their hands up in there and walk out. Okay, and because we didn't really have like, as we were doing this, we didn't have a process that we could, that rules that we can kind of go by. So we would I don't want to say wing it, but we would be committed to the project, we would get it done, but we would let the clients take advantage of us in a major way. I mean, we would do endless revisions endless oh. So take advantage of you with scope creep essentially Well, not just yeah, scope creep, because a lot of clients don't even understand what scope creep is and why it is a thing.
Speaker 1:Oh, could we just add this or oh, could we do that? Not realizing that that one minor change in your mind requires a lot of heavy uplifting in code?
Speaker 2:It's going back to the first main rule that I learned early on is time is money and you can't get stuck in endless amounts of revisions and a process that's going nowhere and letting the client take advantage of you. That's right. So you know, when you are a mature company and you have much more experience, you can guide that process and you can set those expectations first, really early on, with the client so they know what they're signing up for. And even then that's a challenge because a lot of clients will sign up for stuff but they don't always truly know exactly what they're getting into. But you guide them through the process. And also, I mean a big part of this is that now, thankfully, we have a big staff. We have really talented people, talented, experienced people, project managers that are working with us and they're really good at setting those expectations and sticking through to the process to the point where Donnie and I are sort of just really involved right now on a very higher level and kind of are there for guidance and to talk to clients if they just so you're leading, you're managing, we are. We took a big step back from the day to day because that was actually something that our own team sort of kind of told us to do, which is a good thing. I think we might have been, towards the end, sort of doing a lot of this kind of Not harm to the company, but we were not letting them do what they wanted to do. So they told us to step away. Let them kind of do it, and it's working out great. That's a really good thing.
Speaker 1:What that tells me is your team has the trust and faith in their leadership to not get overly upset with them if they bring up some concerns, and that being one concern is you were over managing people that wanted to rise up in their own careers. Yeah, we're cutting through this path by the way. They also.
Speaker 2:You know, we also are lucky that we finally have a core team of people that really value what they do. They value the work, the clients, and they want to see every project successful. That's right, all right, we're almost at the halfway point Wow, how do you feel I? Wish I had water. You didn't bring water. No, I didn't bring water because, Awesome. And now I feel bad together. Why I've got plenty. I have a liter and a half.
Speaker 1:What here? Take it, don't have any, I don't care.
Speaker 2:I'll take some. I'm fairly certain we shared bunks together in college. How do you?
Speaker 1:What do I have to press this button Bite, bite, bite on the tip lightly. That sounded weird. Hey, listener, thanks for hiking along with us. Discover more episodes at wwwmoojiorg. Discover more episodes at wwwhiketokahikecom. Or to recommend an adventurous guest, apply to be a sponsor or to simply draw us a line. Good, thank you, you're welcome. All right, I'm good. Let's find the trail marker and keep going. I got to get one of those. Yeah, hydration pack. They're great. Then you don't have to carry anything. Yeah, all right. So let's talk, let's pivot, Talk SEO. Yes, I want to hear some tips and tricks.
Speaker 2:SEO is.
Speaker 1:We are not going off of this cliff, yeah, but it's a good view.
Speaker 2:It's basically for companies to place themselves on Google. I'm going to say Google because that's the elephant in the room. Obviously, there are other search engines, but when you're talking about the search engine, when most people are searching on its Google, so it's trying to list your company, services, products as high as possible, preferably on the first page. Okay, so that when people type in something that you're offering, your company's going to come up and people are going to click on it and hopefully convert. And that is SEO, search engine optimization. It's an organic process of ranking.
Speaker 1:So what are some tips or tricks that you can share and obviously there's a lot more involved than just some tips and tricks but what can the average person do to increase their business's search engine ranking or climb up to the top?
Speaker 2:Well, I think the best thing that I can say is for somebody that's trying this themselves is really just content. Focus on good content, things that your audience is going to want to see, is going to want to read. Try not to focus too much on the actual search engines themselves and don't write specifically and stuff all these keywords into content because you think you're going to rank for that.
Speaker 1:So don't try to gamify the algo. It'll happen naturally if you're just adding content that's quality.
Speaker 2:If you're adding value to your website through content, through images, and people are interested, the organic rankings are going to come. It's a long-term process. It doesn't happen overnight.
Speaker 1:Well, isn't it true that Google changes the SEO requirements from time to time?
Speaker 2:So Google tweaks its algorithm all the time. Actually, why?
Speaker 1:Is that to screw with people or just upgrade on their end?
Speaker 2:No, I mean listen, they're in the business to serve proper content to their users. That's really what they want to do. Their primary goal is that they want the experience to match the user's expectations. So when you type something in, the first thing that you want to see are things that are relevant to your search, and obviously there's a lot of things that come into play, like what keywords you're using, possibly what cookies you have stored on your browser, like what you've actually visited before, but assuming that you're searching for something completely new and you've never searched for it before, google obviously wants to serve up the best possible experience to its users, so therefore they're going to keep changing the algorithm to match that, and the agenda is changing all the time. The internet keeps growing. There's new websites, there's new content. Some sites don't perform as well anymore. Some new sites perform better. It's a constant process, and I always tell people that are interested in SEO marketing that you're going to get into this for the long term. If you cannot build it into your budget and you are the type of company that wants instant gratification, then don't do this, because it's going to, number one, be a waste of money for you, because you're probably going to give up in like a couple of months or three or something like that or more. You know you got to give it time. Some of my SEO clients are with us for years and sometimes they're with us through the ups and downs All right.
Speaker 1:So SEO is really a long term strategy where you're constantly playing whack-a-mole. Well, if you're I don't know I'll pick out an IT company and you want to be one, two and three in the search? Well, how many thousands of other IT companies that may or may not be able to outspend? You are there. So, while you did get to, let's say, number one in the Google search, you know, maybe two, three weeks later you fell. Yeah, If you didn't stay on top of it, yeah, and that does happen. So let's discuss more about what you do to help your clients and then we'll take another pivot. We'll go into some business challenges and some personal challenges along the way.
Speaker 2:So our biggest value add for our clients is to understand what their pain points are and meet them head on. And you know that process has been developed over the years where, initially, our only objective was just to launch a website. It didn't have much strategy. We didn't really need to understand, like, what their pain points are. Why are they building a site? What is the point? We just wanted to get the account, get paid for it and move on to the next site and kind of like, develop, almost like a mini factory kind of model. We're not looking to do that right now. We're looking to establish relationships with all of our clients. We want longevity, we want to work with them, not interested in just launching a project and walking away. So before we even do a project with a client, we have a whole process where we learn what their pain points are Like. Why are you doing this? If it's a website that you're looking to build for your company, what is the point? Is it because you just want to look better online? Because you hate the way it looks? Right now and I do get a lot of that my salespeople are, you know. They say my salespeople are embarrassed. We don't even want to show our website anymore. That's crazy. Okay, yeah, it happens because it is the number one tool for people to vet out your company. Yeah, so if your site looks like shit, that is going to be the first impression that your prospective customer is going to have in any business.
Speaker 1:That's your first and last. And so, for example, you met with your client, you sold them. They're now doing their due diligence. It's a week or two later, when they're looking at your paperwork again, they go to your website. They forgot everything that you said because you're not in front of them anymore. So the website is to refresh their mind. That's the last chance to sell to that client and close the deal Right. So it's worth it. A website is your storefront, it's your awning, it's an investment in your company and if your salespeople, if anybody in your company, is embarrassed by your website, you absolutely need to change that, you need to amend that.
Speaker 2:I'm at the point right now in business, in the maturity of the company, that I'm not looking to convince anyone of whether they need a digital presence and how good it is. I actually don't do that at all. I refuse to do that. I refuse to pitch somebody the reason why you need one. I used to, but there's no reason for that anymore.
Speaker 1:Why is that?
Speaker 2:Well, because I want to work with companies that already understand that they need a better digital presence and that they have clearly defined pain points and they're in the process of looking for an agency that they can match with really well and meet those requirements and fix those pain points. When I start talking to these clients early on and it's usually me I still like to do it. I'm still like the one that's going to vet out the business initially. It's not just me, but I'm so heavily involved in that. I just love that process and I want to, early on, have a relationship with a lot of these new clients that we onboard. So when they contact me, I don't have a conversation. It's never really about like, all right, well, tell me why I need a website. That's not. I can't. I'll lose track of the conversation and I'm not going to entertain that. I'm going to work with and talk to people that marketing directors, it managers. They already know why they need a website. They're not sold on why they need one or why they need a better one or what's wrong with theirs. They just now have clearly defined pain points, like the website loads too slow or it just looks really dated and our salespeople are embarrassed of it or it doesn't convert very well. Conversations like that are more meaningful because I can understand, like where they're coming from, what their pain points are and I can offer them real solutions. And not only can I offer them real solutions, I could show them what we've done for other clients, because we've been doing this for so long. We have clients in every most every industry and vertical. I have case studies. I could prove the work and when it usually always comes down to like, all right, well, are we going to pick Max first or are we going to pick these other couple of agencies you know to work with?
Speaker 1:So let's talk about some business lessons. You've had a business for how long?
Speaker 2:I've been in. I've been trying to do business for over 20 years now, but I would say that I've had a real growing business, probably for the past I would say 10 plus years.
Speaker 1:What are some of those major lessons you've learned along the way?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, there's been a lot of lessons. It's you know, to definitely manage your time as effectively as possible. Develop a process I'm very big on that. Every business needs to have a process. Any business a purely defined process that you can pass to your staff and then they can execute on that process and revise it along the way as the company grows. It's extremely important to have that and as an owner, you really can't do everything. You have to kind of get into the mindset that you can't be a micromanager. You really have to start entrusting your core team Delegate, delegate. Let them take over essential processes, let them tell you what needs to get done, listen to it If you disagree, and obviously you will, along the way, understand why it should be done this way and guide it along as the process. But really trust your team to kind of drive your business and try to step away and focus on the bigger picture, because you will never grow if you don't.
Speaker 1:That's right. What was the worst mistake you ever made while running your business?
Speaker 2:It's a tough question. I don't know if there's any huge mistake that I've made, because every mistake that I guess you could call that mistake that I made, I learned from it, I grew from it and I adapted it to you know, to where I am today and where I'll be going. I can't attribute any huge mistake that I made in business. I mean sure, everyone can say I always spend money here and correctly, or I allocated resources incorrectly or I pissed off a client or I didn't land a big account. But that's not our story, that's just your typical business journey. So I learned from all of those.
Speaker 1:We heard from another guest on the former episode that if you didn't land that account, well, it was never your sale in the first place. Well, right, so don't beat yourself up about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's true. But also I, you know I have to differ a little bit because, looking back at it, I always reflected why we didn't get a certain account or what could have we done differently. And just to say to yourself like, oh well, you weren't gonna get it anyway isn't really like a good thing. So I could honestly go back to every single example of a business that we didn't land and it's because I could confidently say, it's because we didn't do XYZ.
Speaker 1:Okay, and we should have. Do you follow up with those same accounts later?
Speaker 2:on? Yeah, we do, did you?
Speaker 1:ever win any of them.
Speaker 2:Some of them we actually have because we've kept in touch and some of them actually will come back. I mean, listen, it doesn't happen often, but some of them will come back and say, oh you know, we should have went with you guys in the first place, but we chose this other agency because they did these things differently in the process initially and that's what sold us but, you know, turned out to be a really bad project. We didn't get what we wanted, or halfway they laughed us, whatever the reason is. And then you know, we step in and hopefully we're able to help Some. We just contact years later when the project or whatever they've done is live and they're just looking to change agencies. A lot of times, businesses just want to change an agency because it's not because the agency that they're with is messing up, it's just because they want to see if anyone has a different direction or a different, you know, way of doing things. It's normal for agencies to constantly be changed around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, if you know you're working with an agency or a vendor and they're not providing you with new great ideas or learning lessons that they would like to implement on your side, then you know that still, relationship should probably be, or at least considered to be, changed. You always want to work with vendors that are going to bring the best to you. Yes, and I can see how a relationship over time just gets taken advantage of. Yeah, not in a mean way or an evil way, right, but just in a assumptive way. We assume we will always have this big account, forever.
Speaker 2:It's like it's like you overstayed your welcome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you overstayed your welcome.
Speaker 2:You know you get comfortable and it's not that you're not doing the right thing for the customer, but you're just not as hungry as you were when you first signed them up. That's right and it's just normal. It's just the way it is and you know they look for a change. So I was a life cycle.
Speaker 1:When we had our bigger company. I have always enjoyed working with smaller vendors because they are hungry. They have that hunger to impress and they're willing to work and put in all of those extra hours and efforts versus falling back on their sheer size and reputation. All right, so back to the personal front. What are some challenges you face in your personal life that you've learned from Well?
Speaker 2:I have two kids. I have a boy and a girl and I'm married.
Speaker 1:Well, there you go. End of episode. That was the biggest challenge you could have?
Speaker 2:Obviously it's not, but the biggest challenge is right now my life is just raising my children.
Speaker 1:Being a parent is the hardest job you could have.
Speaker 2:That is one of the biggest personal challenges. It's obviously being staying married and kind of growing in the marriage, understanding each other. It's very important. Luckily, my wife and I have a lot of love for each other and we were very understanding and we have a good relationship and now we're raising our two children. So I think that is the biggest challenge right now, at least for me in our lives, and I treat it as it's like it's funny. I don't know if that's gonna resonate, but it's like the kids are almost like many companies At least that's the way I look at it. You invest in them. I don't want to take the human element away from it, obviously, but they're like little companies. They're important to you, you're investing into them, you're spending a lot of time into them and they're like are they paying dividends?
Speaker 1:Not yet, it's a little cookie jar where every time they they have a tidbit, they drop a quarter into it.
Speaker 2:Not yet. Maybe later on we'll see. Right now, the dividends are just in the joy of seeing them grow. That's right. So I try to spend a lot of time with the both of them and I try to have a relationship a separate relationship with each one of my kids, because I think that's important. I see a lot of parents they have a relationship only when they're like around their kids together or when their wife is around. So it's always like a relationship is like within the family, which is obviously important. But I try to have a separate relationship with each one of my kids so I really get to know them. That's important.
Speaker 1:They build a separate bond. Now for me I have a big challenge with that because I have twins. So I want to go do one thing, the other one wants to follow or be part of it. Luckily my twins, their personalities, have taken a fork in the road. One's into cheer and everything pink and cliche from the girly girly sense and the other one is into baseball and the cross and roll block. So I do have those easy moments where I could divide and spend individual time. I spent the whole summer with the baby, so she's had a lot of time.
Speaker 2:She's hanging in their own ways. It's very important and I know your kids really well and our kids are friends and they get along really well, so it's important. Another real challenge personally is with my son. He has type 1 diabetes. He's had it pretty much all his life. It's still something that we still struggle with, even now. He's 11 and he was diagnosed when he was only 15 months, so he was a baby. Wasn't he the youngest case? He actually was the youngest case that the hospital that we were at has ever seen.
Speaker 1:Not a record you really want to hold?
Speaker 2:No, I mean, I'm sure there's obviously younger, but Dave personally had. He was a baby, so it was really difficult for my wife and I to deal with that. How do you deal with?
Speaker 1:it.
Speaker 2:We're used to it right now, so it's definitely easier for us, but there's different challenges now. He's older, so he's dealing with it himself also and for the most part it's. It's not something that anyone really sees or knows about he could do everything but it's something that we're constantly on our mind, like his sugar levels, what he's eating, you know, and so these are really. This is just something that's very important and for anyone that knows this condition type 1 diabetes it's challenging. It's challenging. It's a major lifestyle modification. I'll call it like a major. You have to really be in tune with it. All the time when he was a baby and he didn't understand anything and he didn't eat right and he's just, you know, like all babies, but yet his pancreas wasn't working, his sugar was still dropping. Yeah, my wife and I had a lot of. We had a lot of really manic episodes with this, really tough nights. Really tough nights that really challenged us in a lot of ways in the marriage too. But you know, we both always say that two people were gonna get this type of a situation. Might as well be us, because we're tough and you know we're able to cope with it. I mean, even last night was tough. He had a really big low around 11 o'clock when I wanted to go to sleep earlier for this hike. He was dropped really low and we had to rush to his room and give him juice and because he's still a kid, he still he can't police it on his own. He's still a kid and he just doesn't feel it sometimes. And then he felt it because he was really low. So we dealt with it, we sat there with him. Yeah, it's a. So that's that's a huge challenge. That's a huge challenge, but but it's something that we're dealing with pretty well.
Speaker 1:What advice would you have to a new parent that just found out their child has type 1 diabetes?
Speaker 2:So you got to give a time. Time is everything Seems to be a recurring thing with you. In the beginning, we were panicked. We were panicked. We had no idea how to deal with this. It seemed like the world was gonna be over. We were not gonna. We were not gonna cope with this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do remember you when you called me and I think my advice to you was okay, so deal with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know and I figured out. What choice do you have? This is your kid.
Speaker 1:You deal with it, this was your card. Yeah, yeah, it's a roadblock sometimes but you know, at the end of the day, calm, cool and collected, make good decisions. Okay, they'll live a great life with it.
Speaker 2:You know we have, thankfully, a really good family support system with my parents and my wife's parents. Everybody's involved, everybody tries to help out and look, we dealt with it. But we understand fully how how parent that has that hears this news feels at first it's like it's not punch, it's difficult to cope with. Yeah, it is in the beginning. Well, any big news.
Speaker 1:It's, it's a gut punch. It's, you know, this perfect imagination or this thought that I had of this perfect world, right, the house with the white picket fence and the happy, healthy kids yeah, that I could see how that comes full circle and straighten your face.
Speaker 2:See that actually in the beginning was a big distraction for me in business, and that's where my what, where my partner Donnie really just shined and helped me and was there and never questioned how much time I'm not in the office or like where, what I'm doing, where I am. I mean, it was just kind of like understood that I have this major life event that I have to deal with and there's nothing I could do about it. I still care about the business. I'm gonna be back, but I just can't be back now and I love him for that. I'll never you know, I'll never forget that Great partnership.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so partners get your back.
Speaker 2:So, and you would do the same for him. I would, yeah, I would do the same for him absolutely, and we were not even in the position that we are now. This was earlier on and he had to do a lot of the work himself and we didn't have a team like we have now. So you know it was. We didn't have 50 plus people, we had three.
Speaker 1:So here's the crazy thing that made him stronger as well, because there's no better test to your skills and your ability to stay emotionally strong than when you are on your own as a business partner, knowing that you're helping your business partner out for good reason. But that definitely helped him develop his skills as well.
Speaker 2:It also actually motivated me in a different way, like when I snapped out of it and I did get, finally get back into into into the company. It made me stronger because, like I want it to be more successful, I wanted to grow the company I wanted to to new purpose. Well, yeah, I want to care my son the right way. He's gonna require more things. Yeah, it motivated me. It was definitely a motivating like once I was able to kind of say like, all right, I'm gonna get my head back in this like we got this, we could do, we could do this. My wife is involved in this. Well, I would say that was a. That was a growth mode.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hey, listener, thanks for hiking along with us, discover more episodes at. I took a hikecom or to recommend an adventurous guest, apply to bea sponsor, or to simply drop us a line. So let's let's discuss what is potentially a bubble, like everything else that is so hyped, all of a sudden, overnight, it tends to crash and burn. So is AI a threat, a success factor for the future human achievement, or will it burst like a bubble, crash like a rocket and burn?
Speaker 2:So, yeah, everybody has a lot of opinions about it and I've think about it a lot and I use a lot of AI in my business today, although I think it's very primitive when you, when you're talking about what AI actually could be. You know, everyone knows that is artificial intelligence, but you know, right now I think it's just more tools that people could use to just kind of enhance tasks, resources and yeah. So, and that's really where it's at right now and obviously it's getting much more advanced. I recently had a whole conversation with my brother about it when I visited him, and I talk about this with a lot of you know, to a lot of people. Do I see it as a threat? It can be, absolutely it can be, but it really just depends on where it is actually going to go and how much we pay attention to it. Okay, so just right, talking about in terms of right now. You have to, you cannot, you cannot sleep on it. Anybody that's in business has to pay attention to what's going on with these AI tools and how to leverage them for their own businesses. It's extremely important because you will fall behind very quickly if you don't leverage some of your AI tools in your everyday process, some of the things that I do with AI for my business. Obviously it's content because, like everybody just knows, right now most people know me, even my dad knows chat GPT. Yeah, chat GPT is the most prolifant right now. Okay, but that is not really what AI actually is or it's going. But chat GPT is super impressive and you should be leveraging it on a lot of levels for your business. But I also generate a lot of images AI based images, okay and there's other certain tools that we've been able to incorporate into our process of, you know, agency-based process that's using AI tools we used to offer with whatever services we're doing, bundled with a content writer, our customers, our clients, would pay for and work, you know, work with this person. I mean really no more. It's it's, it's all. It's really a lot of this AI generated content that is being tweaked.
Speaker 1:Now here's the thing if you are using AI, it's very detectable. People can tell. Still I can tell if somebody put a post up and it was purely 100% copying. Absolutely yes, I can tell but, it'll make it your own, but this is no different to me than doing research or hiring somebody to write that piece for you. I know many people some of the biggest influencers out there that you'll see on LinkedIn. They don't write their content. They're not using AI. They have a copywriter. The copywriter is writing it for them and they're posting it. That's that. So I'm a big fan of using tools and resources. I don't like the cheating aspect of just using those tools and resources. Put your own work into it, but I do see a huge threat.
Speaker 2:You know the computer at one point was also seen as a tool that could potentially look that as cheating.
Speaker 1:So as the calculator? You and I are old enough to remember when, going to school, you were told you can't use a calculator on a test. Yes, which?
Speaker 2:is today. That's absurd, absurd, yeah, absurd. So, look, this is going to be no different, and it's a technology that's growing so fast that nobody could really kind of ignore it at this point, and I don't think there's any way to bottle it up. Maybe there'll be some regulation, some legislation around the regulation, like how people are going to legally utilize it, and there should be on some capacity of how this technology grows. But again, where we're going to really see it disrupt a lot of people's jobs is definitely like, for example, drivers, people that are working behind the counter, such as Starbucks, or a fast food place, sandwiches, things like places like that. The companies are already putting up stores that are automating. I mean, starbucks I just read an article has just had a, I think, a new store come up that's fully automated. I don't even think there's a single person that works there. Maybe there's somebody like in the back somewhere, yeah, but there's nobody there at all. It's a fully automated drive-thru driven by AI and understands multiple languages. It's just much more efficient, doesn't need to take a bathroom break, doesn't need to take a lunch break, doesn't complain about not feeling well, and it's just much more efficient for companies to replace workers with this type of technology and it's definitely going to happen very soon.
Speaker 1:So we can see where this is going to cause a very, very big hole in the economy.
Speaker 2:Well, I have my theories on that too, and how that's going to play out.
Speaker 1:Well, you can't tell me? And listen, I can argue both sides. I've pride myself, or prided myself, on being able to see both sides in any argument, no matter how extreme it is. Right, because your argument, your opinion, is your opinion and I want to know why. Okay, I could see the pros and cons for a fully automated we'll call it retail experience. Right, for all the reasons you just mentioned. Okay, but I could also see the antithesis, the argument against it, for how the worker that would typically be employed by Starbucks will no longer have a place to have that entry level position up to the ladder of management or even at the corporate level. That springboard has been taken away or will be taken away, so they have to go somewhere. Right, and I don't know if we are in an economy that is creating those style jobs after the robots take over.
Speaker 2:I feel like humanity is trending in a way where people just don't want to do these jobs anymore.
Speaker 1:And where are they going to go?
Speaker 2:Well, when I was 16, 15, whatever that was, and I was working in Jones Beach Flip and Burgers, I utterly hated it. I hated everything. There was nothing good about it Other than the fact that I was getting a paycheck. I was doing it for money, obviously.
Speaker 1:You were learning how to be a productive employee.
Speaker 2:Was I though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you were Okay.
Speaker 2:I mean, I had a little Absolutely.
Speaker 1:That was experience for you doing something you didn't want to do, but you still had to do it.
Speaker 2:I had to do it because that happens a lot in life. I had to do it because I just needed a little bit of money.
Speaker 1:But as a kid you learned lessons that sometimes you show up for work and have to do a whole bunch of stuff.
Speaker 2:You don't want to do, fine, okay, that is a valuable lesson. But the same argument of math as we become more advanced, right?
Speaker 1:Why do kids complain about? Am I really going to use calculus? No, you're not, but it's expanding your learning process and your aptitude.
Speaker 2:Look as society advances and it's just a natural progression that people will not be doing these types of jobs. It's not even an argument, it's happening, yeah. So how are they going to be paid? Well, there's I'm sure you've heard of something called UBI Universal Basic Income. I'm not 100% on board with it, but I don't see any way around it either, because when these companies basically integrate these processes and AI and machines and replace these employees, what are they going to do with them? How are they going to get paid? So I think that there's going to be some type of a mathematical formula that governments will put into process and these companies are going to have to pay. Like, all right, you have this arm that flips this burger. Okay, well, that equals X. This is the equation for that machine and that process. You have these two things, that's so. Basically, it's almost like all right. Well, this used to be a payroll, this is now your new payroll. I think businesses will be.
Speaker 1:So you're saying that you think that UBI will be enforced by regulatory, and we all know that when the government steps in and creates regulatory, it goes flawlessly. No one steals from that cookie jar. It's going to be a massive slush fund, exactly so that money is going to go somewhere and it's not going to be spent in the right mode. So let's yeah, this is beautiful. I definitely think we need to take a picture here in a second. So let's say, though, that UBI comes in Starbucks. You used to have 5,000 stores. You now have 10,000 stores. You used to have five employees in each store. You are now down to no employees. That's 50,000 that you're not paying on payroll. So UBI rules will now say that you have to contribute I don't know $10 million per year to UBI. Great, that money is going to go where Low income housing, supporting people of need Politicians will have. Exactly it's going to be misappropriated if it exacerbates the issue.
Speaker 2:There will be no world where these companies will basically replace their payroll and not have to have any responsibility when it comes to paying something. Maybe, yes, maybe no, I don't see it, because people are going to have to somehow get some kind. There's going to have to be some type of a living situation, like they're going to have to get paid so if you can't drive anymore. I mean, think about how. What percentage of the population does these types of jobs? It's huge. So what are you going to do in this situation? Like they have to get some type of an income stream so companies will replace. If they're going to let these employees go because they've automated their jobs, which they're going to, they're going to. It's not even. It's not an if, it's not even. It's like when this is going to happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is a when.
Speaker 2:So they're going to have to pay for this.
Speaker 1:They're going to have to pay for this process, your bet is as good as mine, this will be a completely misappropriated contribution. Like everything else, history constantly repeats itself and what I envision is, in this case, we're going to have a whole bunch of teenagers that should have had jobs that will not, and we're going to create a generation of very irresponsible, ill-equipped future adults. We'll see. It was important for me to have a job. Now I might be an outlier. I had my first job at nine. All right, I've worked many different retail positions. Atapizaria probably shouldn't even been allowed to be hired Definitely should not have been allowed to, but I did that. That taught me what it was like to be a worker Right, I babysat. I worked at camps as a counselor. I worked at sporting facilities. I've done almost everything. A place called Pergamon, like Home Depot. That taught me what it's like to not want to stock a shelf or face a shelf ever again, but those are important skills. I want those for my kids. Now, if those jobs are not available in the future because AI has displaced the need, we're going to do a good disservice for our youth.
Speaker 2:I know, but I don't think so, but hey, we'll have a fund for it, there's no stopping it.
Speaker 1:We'll have a completely appropriated fund that's even a word and it will be spent wisely. There'll be no corruption and Starbucks will be sure to contribute to that. Just trust the geniuses. Trust the geniuses.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:You know it's. Unfortunately, I think we know how this is going to play out. It's going to be a source of continued frustration, because history continuously repeats itself.
Speaker 2:But there's no way you're going to stop companies from optimizing their process better.
Speaker 1:And as they should and they will. As a business advocate, I think they should be going in this direction, but what I'm saying is I'm arguing both sides here. Business advocate, it's the evolution of business works smarter, not harder, but there's going to be the check and balance which is going to be corrupted, and that's unfortunate. And once government steps in, there's certain things they should do and we should do that we won't do so. Let me give you it on the surface. For instance, whenever, if I do have chat, GPT or Grammarly, help me and it's in an excess, not just comma placement or a quick edit I put on my posts. This post was written by me, edited by Grammarly or post created by.
Speaker 2:I didn't notice that actually. Yeah, I put that.
Speaker 1:Why? Because I was taught when I was a kid. When you go to the library and you cite something, you create a bibliography and you give credit to the site and source, but I don't see how chat GPT is any different. Right, I think I'm the only one saying written by me, edited by Grammarly, or written by me, orchestrated by chat GPT.
Speaker 2:So are you aware that there is an art form? There's a skill to what kind of output you get from these AI tools. There's a way to do it, so some people are really good at it, so they're called prompt whispers. I don't know if you've ever heard of it no. Yeah, so there's actual companies hire. If you Google salaries for a prompt whisper, yeah, there's companies that are hiring prompt whispers they're called that understand how to put certain information into tools like chat, gpt or mid-journey or whatever tools that they use. Okay, and what happens is they get back better results. So like, yeah, you could be really like just generic and go into chat GPT and say write me an article about the best 10 tips on how to hike. Yeah, sure, you could do that and you'll get something. Or you can go in into chat GPT and say write me a 1500 word article on the best ways, the techniques on how to hike. And you know you just shake Spearian type of a type of tone. Yeah, you know, and keep it lighthearted.
Speaker 1:More precise than that.
Speaker 2:Well, you know you can get. You can get really kind of into it and you're going to get a completely different result that comes out of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and some people very good at it so yeah, so it's more like anything else. It's trial and error, it's practice, just like we have have journalists that are exceptionally great at writing stories, right. You have people that have now taken those same journalism skills and put it into a chat model, right? So what other aspects of AI should we be focusing on to leverage our own growth in our own business? So, obviously probably not the best idea for it to create an entire blog post for you every single day, because that's pretty transparent, but maybe give you some ideas on blog posting.
Speaker 2:We just we just scratched the surface. There's so much you could do with it. I mean, you could have it. You could have it. You could basically have it, go in and analyze an entire complicated spreadsheet for you of financials or inventory and make sense of it and output that into another type of a system or application that you need for whatever needs you have. Yeah, so there's so many tools available that you could use to just help automate things in your day to day business.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So for my own edification and really experience, I ended up going into ChatGPT and I had hit create a P&L for a tech company with eight and a half million in annualized revenue at a 35% margin, just to see what it would spit out. And the scary part, it spit out a dangerously accurate P&L. Yeah, yeah, I've seen those that is just ready for fraudulent misuse and I'm sure and that is scary as well, because the banking system and the insurance systems are not going to catch up quick enough and there are going to be a lot of fraudsters out there that will present these fantastic documents, these reports, within a matter of seconds that are dangerously accurate, and they will certainly be conning the banks and lending institutions.
Speaker 2:I'm sure it's being done now. It's not just documents, but all these deep fakes that are there. I'm sure you hear in the news all the time. It's capable of doing video and people professionals, pros have a really tough time. Different what's the real, what's not?
Speaker 1:So then, I guess, in an existential view, what's our point anymore? What's the purpose? The robots are winning.
Speaker 2:Well, maybe that is our story and our the evolution, but they're not winning today. So we'll see what we'll see what comes out of this. But look, we know the technology only advances and this is going to be. This is. This is right. We're living right now in the beginning of definitely a revolution as big as, I guess you could say, as the industrial revolution was at the time.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, that is a bold statement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is definitely the beginning.
Speaker 1:So the AI generation, this revolution of AI, is on par with the growth and development that was institutionalized from the industrial revolution.
Speaker 2:Wow, I believe that this is going to be I mean, it's already somewhat, you know, game changing, but it will be heavily ingrained and felt in everybody's lives in the next five to 10 years.
Speaker 1:I can certainly tell you. You know it does give you a lot of shortcuts. You know that are necessary in a small business. You know we've seen a lot of other shortcuts the ability to work remotely. You know, when I started my telecom business I had to have a Manhattan office address with a Manhattan phone number, a two, one, two number. That was a must. No one would ever do business with me in New York City. I felt the same way. I had a two, one, two. Guess what? No one cares.
Speaker 2:No one cares, so I don't even need a phone.
Speaker 1:I still have it and I don't even know why I don't even need a phone anymore. I can start a business now anywhere. I don't even need to be in New York City, because no one cares about the address anymore. Right.
Speaker 2:I don't think people are impressed with that as much as they used to.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, I'm over generalizing right now. But depending on your business, you don't even need an office, so now you can circumvent multiple employees that you don't need to hire anymore because of AI yeah Right, Granted, I chose the tried and true route editing a podcast. I didn't want to learn these skills because I don't need to learn 10,000, you know or put 10,000 hours into learning something where someone else is an expert. So I have an editor, but I could most likely use AI to edit this podcast episode. It might not be in fact, it won't be as good because I don't think it's there yet but it's potentially possible and that, to me, is crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But it's evolution.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's the beginning. Once we start to see things that are legitimately thinking for themselves and learning and adapting on their own and we're interacting with them on our day to day lives, it's a game changing talk, yeah.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Okay. Yeah, almost slipped. We're nearing the final stretch here. So, drew, do you believe you are successful?
Speaker 2:That's a tough one In some ways, yes, in some ways, no. I'm going to be brutally honest with this one. I don't know. It's hard to measure success. Everyone measures it differently.
Speaker 1:What is your definition of success?
Speaker 2:Look, I'm not ashamed to say that I'm a capitalist at heart. I feel like a byproduct of success is definitely financial freedom and making money, and I think that that's a good thing. Especially if you're an entrepreneur and you're in business, your goal should be driven by money, because that produces a lot of positive things. You hire people, you're able to pay them. It's very noble. It's one of the most noble things an entrepreneur can do is give somebody an opportunity, a job, livelihood. It's very frequently overlooked, I think, as one of the major things that is a success factor in developing a company.
Speaker 1:You're going down the path of defining success for a company, and I will absolutely, wholeheartedly agree with you that success in a company is revenue and profit.
Speaker 2:So for me it's financial freedom. It's also giving me more time to be with my family and just doing podcasts and walking around and hiking and I have to worry about the business and right now I feel like I have some of that, but I'm still very into it. I'm still there, so I'm still very involved and that's okay, that's fine. But for me, that success would be to truly just walk away and still have financial freedom and just do whatever you want to do.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, I cannot argue with your definition of success. I would say I consider you successful. You're a great father, great parent in that sense, great husband. You've run a business for 20 years, successfully weathered the storms, the ups, the downs, the lefts, the rights, hired people, transitioned, grew your business. Great partner in the business Right.
Speaker 2:I would say for the most part from what I see, you're healthy.
Speaker 1:You've got that family support. I would call that success. Now, whether or not financial freedom is ever something we can achieve, I don't know. I guess we're all still searching for that piece, but that seems to be the piece that we're always going to be chasing, especially in American society. So, andrew Ruditzer, I will thank you for hiking along with me today. Thank you, darren, it's been an amazing experience. Thank you, I really appreciate it. And thank you for a great friendship, a very long, lifelong, long-lasting friendship, which is something I'm very proud of, and Andrew Ruditzer. While most people went to work today, we went to hustle. Yes, we did. Next time on, I Took a Hike. Brace yourself for a shocking twist, as John Firth, a skilled business advisor and CEO coach, unveils a secret that he's grappled with for years, a revelation that left me as stunned as you'll be. Till next time. I'm Darren Mas. Thanks for listening.
