A lot of founders worry about the optics of profitability because they're told to but they misunderstand the timing like you should not your pants when you're 57, but you definitely are allowed to p. You know your pants when you're one and i think a lot of companies start making these decisions at one and two years old that don't make sense for a one or two year old company. You've got your perspective. I just want to be happy.

Don't you want to be happy hi gary? How are you i'm wamasha? How are you amazing? So this is our second fridays uh on a thursday first, you know that's gon na be another thursday uh, where we talk to founders and give them relevant advice on exactly. What's happening right now we had a great first episode uh last week and i'm excited to see the founders that uh that join us this week. I agree. I thought the episode went extremely well.

Let's give a huge shout out to everybody in the linkedin family out there uh, let's take a look here, mcmahon and milan, and chris juan and isaac and este rob great to see. All of you keep the comments coming. Your questions, insights, justin, long's in the building. Um, a real fun part of this show is the live.

Linkedin community that watches, along with us, um lizette good, to see you, susan um, so yeah, i'm really excited. I thought the level of conversation was very high level, um and uh. I'm excited about it and michelle's face is frozen for me, so i will continue to talk um producers, if you guys want to jump in i'm just going to talk and say hi to ollie and johnny evereed and samuel and dana jacobson, um and uh and omar Great to see you come olaf great to see you there, you are there. I am, i don't know what happened there like a little network problem.

It looked like it looks like we're back though. Yes, i was just saying hello to everybody who's tuned in on linkedin. Please everybody on linkedin hit the share, take the url right now and share it on twitter and other places. Um really really fun, but let's get into it.

Yeah, let's get into it, so would love to bring on our first guest anna peterson uh, the ceo of the animals wow hello. How are you i'm so great? How are you guys good would love to uh a quick. You know 30 second pitch on uh on doing your business yeah sure. So i created a screen.

Free meditation device by our first product was for children. It's in the shape of a little turtle that plays mind-guided meditations at the press of button and three sleep. Soundtracks um, it's an fda, approved uh food grade, silicone shell. So it's a super safe product.

It's removable, the shell is dishwasher, safe, there's a speaker and an earphone jack for audio options. Hospitals, schools and other institutions are instilling them as programs for mindfulness and social emotional learning for children and then recently just launched a teen and adult device um. So those are going into general hospitals, uh and we hope to branch out into the military and the and the nursing home community as well. That's amazing, and it's like it sounds like you've made it a million dollar business already i have i have.

It was amazing. I was um telling some of the other people backstage it was. I i officially started marketing in march of 2020 and uh. It was an unbelievable time in the world, and and just being there for people was a really magical experience and quite overwhelming there was a huge sense of responsibility that i felt and um and then also being there.

I support uh, five percent of the profits go to precious dreams foundation and that was like they were instrumental last year in helping children in foster care and um. So being a part of that conversation as well was was matt. It's been, it's been wonderful as as horrible as the last. However, many months we've been doing this now yeah ben - i think it's been pretty magical for for the mental health space and bringing awareness to you know the fact that even pre-pandemic, the second leading cause of death for kids, age 10 to 14 was suicide.

This was pre pandemic like this was a conversation we should have been having five ten years ago. Um we're a little late, you know, and so i think i guess better late than never, but but happy again just to to be here and be a part of it. That's awesome! So what are your questions for us today yeah? So i am still running the show by myself. I have no full-time employees um, and so i i have a lot of great consultants in place for accounting.

I have a great 3pl, and so i think my biggest pain point right now is b2b sales. That's been really difficult, trying to build that team, but also supply chain. I do manufacture in china and, as you all know like that's, that has come with some severe difficulties this year, and so i guess my question would be: what do you, who do you think my first hire should be at this stage in my game. So i can weigh in first and then uh we're gon na see what gary has to say.

So i think uh for me. You actually want to look for like a true second line to you, jack of all trades that can figure out anything not afraid to get their hands dirty that you can build that level of trust with um. It's great that you've used like consultants and key areas like you know, jack of all trades is not your best accountant but really like. This is a super hard part for every founder where they realize that they cannot infinitely scale themselves and it's really hard and it's really stressful, where every customer service email every time a problem happens and so that that person sometimes takes a little a hard time to Find but they're someone that wants to they're willing to build a business.

You should be willing to give them a piece of equity if they turn out really well um, but that is like so so so critical and i actually meet a lot of founders that get to you know a couple million dollars in sales. I i actually met one recently was about 10 and just could not take herself out of the business, and you just hit this point where you cannot get any bigger unless you can learn to trust other folks. So it's a critical point. Uh.

If you get around the first time, remember that you you can certainly move on and hire someone else, because i know it's scary, but that's uh. That's what i would say. That's great amazing um and for me i think. Yes, i agree with everything michelle said.

I think there's a lot of validity there. What what are you worse that and or what do you most dislike? If i ask you right now, what do you most dislike in your week to week forget about day to day, because i don't think that's consistent enough, like you know like in a month like what do you just genuinely not like out of all the things? What do you not like? That's a it's an awesome question i think on any given day. I think there there are many things i of course i love development, but the supply chain i find very, very stressful, um. Those logistics are tough, i think financials, it's.

I don't like it probably because i'm not super good at it, and it takes me a lot of time and i'm a very i love efficiency and it that takes me extra time to understand and grasp, and so i get frustrated there so probably probably financials and And supply chain are my things that i could probably do without that. That's your hire. Okay, if you're lucky enough to find somebody who can do both, which is not inconceivable, people go into court. People go into corporate mindset, be too fast when they're small right, like you're, doing a ton of things on paper.

I don't know what i don't know you. I don't know what you were doing before, but on paper it might have not seemed like you could or should do all these things, but you do have a necessity right when you start a company. I i think i would look for somebody for supply chain yeah and then literally interview and like literally post on linkedin and say i'm looking for supply chain, comma small company house like are you an accountant by trade or, like you, they're, just a there's a like This concept that people are one thing is very corporate right and startup land. Like everything chief everything officer the ceo, i think you can find somebody who does supply chain and finances.

Okay, i'm convinced you can. I actually think that they have a lot of similarities from a human, and so i think that straight man or woman is exactly who you're looking for okay, awesome, great um and then oh, my second question um, so i haven't taken any outside funding to date. Do you guys think at this stage that it's worth giving up some equity to be able to scale quickly to build an entire team and and do do the bigger things and throw you know some more at marketing than i'm that i'm currently doing you know risking You know some bouts of of you know lack of profitability, and things like that. Do you think that is that would be a wise move or not quite yet michelle.

I think this is so in your zone and then i'll follow up yeah sure um. You know. Look, i'm i'm biased right. The whole reason we built clear co is because i believe that when you do the work as the founder, you should own your company, because the reality is is that um investors are going to put in money they're going to do absolutely nothing to build your business And you are going to be left doing all of the work, and so it doesn't seem like you're giving up much in the early days.

It's like. Oh i'm, giving up 5 or 10 or 25 of my company, and it can be so much bigger. But my gut is that you'll be successful. I mean if you took something from idea to product, to prototype, to a million sales like most people, never ever ever, get there and so on in and that's really problematic.

When you don't feel like you control your own destiny, when people that don't have the same information, you have are telling you to make decisions on your business and so we're a big fan of obviously being able to use capital. So you can still invest more into marketing. You could still um, you know, be feeling that growth, but at the end of the day you know paying six percent for that capital versus you know giving up a piece of control in your company. That being said, there are amazing investors out there.

If you have someone super value-add, i suggest you doing a ton of homework. It's like a marriage with no sex, so you should really like that person before starting to work with them and really understand that they want to spend the kind of time and it won't be the same as you. But but they want to spend true time and true thought: um building your business, that's great! You said something that really caught my attention. I don't think businesses should really worry about profitability, besides making payroll and paying their bills unless they are on the precipice of selling and are going for that or there's some erroneous events in that human being's life, where they just need the money - and i don't mean I need a second home or i need a test.

I need a tesla right, so i think um. A lot of founders worry about the optics of profitability because they're told to but they misunderstand the timing like you should not your pants when you're 57, but you definitely are allowed to p. You know your pants when you're one and i think a lot of companies start making these decisions at one and two years old that don't make sense for a one or two-year-old company right, like i spent most of my time, trying to make vaynermedia and wine library. My two family businesses, my family business and my business as little profit as possible, because i want to pour back in to build as big of a business as possible.

Sure yeah so like when you know you know, hurt profitability or things that need. You know like. If you're you're, not that means you're playing defense at such a young age, yeah yeah, the other thing that i would um. The last thing i would share anna is that you know i was a bootstrapped entrepreneur for the first 10 years of my career got lucky enough to sell one of my companies to groupon, and it was the only reason i got to build.

Other things is that i actually you know i had two co-founders. I owned a third of the company. We had a 10 esop pool, honest, i remember doing the math and even if we had raised a seed round or a series, a like you're looking for a 25 50 million outcome, because again your investors get their money back first right. So if you get a million dollars into your business and your business only sells for a million bucks, they get all their money back and you are left with nothing.

And there is a true downside case, and so it also just depends on your personality type like for me. I wanted to know my downside case is like okay, like i still have a third of this business right, um and uh, and that that really did matter to me, but i think it was. It was game changing in my career uh that i was able to retain. You know equity at an early age, and i get it you can it's just a much higher risk path, uh to take another move, and i actually think there are there now are capital sources available that can allow you to grow uh without doing that.

Yeah. That's amazing: that's great cool! I like what anna, what what's the biggest difference right this minute in the consumer part than when you launched with success, competitive landscape demand, evolution, staleness um, like you know, growth like what's the biggest difference right now on the consumer lens, like is the map yeah. I think, if i understand the question correctly, i think learning that this is a seasonal product, which i think is the strangest way yeah fast. Even though people buy meditation apps, i i i it's.

I don't know i don't. I don't know if it's the price point or if it's because it's a physical product, but it's very like summer was very very slow. People were traveling, like kids were staying up late parents didn't care that they were having problems sleeping because they could sleep in, and you know during the day, um as soon as school started back up, it was like the moon again. Um chris holidays are bananas which is like that was a new game for me that i realized last year.

I was not anticipating that at all there's a lot of ebb and flow throughout the year, and i think it was this is this - is where marketing really really really really matters? Yes and in two ways doubling down on key moments right and then a lot of companies go cold when they think it's not season. This is where i completely exploded. My dad's business people would restart marketing in september and october yeah, and i i marketed like crazy in july and august and my dad was freaked out yeah, because i was building awareness for september yeah, so right so like if you start doing content in mid-july. That says things in the copy, like hey click it for a calendar, reminder to make sure on august 30th, you're ready to like buy our product like just notice.

How clever and like how you're like like just that yeah just a piece of content. Like does your kid sleep well and then, like here's, a calendar, i know literally you're being empathetic to them. The copy is, i know you guys in the summer, enjoy it staying up late, sleep in click. This link to put this in your google calendar for september 1st, to make sure you you'd be stunned.

What kind like that? That's so cool, i think so, yeah there you go! What i think i didn't get here with my look santa this is the i do. It's really it's about things like that. I also hear your neck and i also think content from your customers is huge yeah. I think i think you should send an email out to everybody who ever bought and said if you make a tick tock with our product.

Please email it here and randomly some of you will xyz yeah yeah tick. Tock is not it's not a platform that we're on yet, and i am like a bang in my head against the wall trying to get that going because i think it's a huge mystery. You need you need to do that immediately. You're, one you're, one tick, tock away one one random tuck that you're, not even thinking about away from having a totally different business, yeah yeah the amount i mean, tic tocs explosion is 38 to 50 right now.

Yeah. It's unbelievable, i think, and that's and that's where, like i think, bandwidth comes in and things like that, but this just needs to go to the top of the list and, like the other, the other thing that companies make a mistake on. Is they don't realize the moment tick-tock virality, to get 12 million views on a video is going to go away in 24 months and you're going to miss the window? Correct, yeah, yeah yeah? No, it's uh! Absolutely! Absolutely! Well! I'm sorry michelle! I apologize anna! You need to you need to prioritize that to number one anything that allows you for brand explosion at high upside low investment. Yeah brand, not sales brand explosion, high upside low investment needs to be the number one thing you prioritize yeah and because it's not a sales conversion for a dtc brand tick.

Tock is down the totem pole right, because people think people thinking conversion yeah. I definitely do yeah awesome all right. That's great advice! Okay, so you you, you have a few ideas around new hires around tick tocks around, which would be the top of the priority list and uh and we're wishing you all the best luck. Thank you.

Thank you. Both so much i really hold on anna real, quick, william patrick, in the comments it says, i'm your guy for supply chain travel there. It is amazing, thank you i will i will. I will awesome.

Thank you guys. Cheers cheers bye, okay, that was fun. That was really fun. That was really fun.

I, as a quick interlude here, i heard your nft was sold at christie's this week tomorrow. Tomorrow, that's exciting tomorrow, my five original five of my original drawings are being sold. So not the nfts like curio cards and art blocks the actual art yeah. I am an artist, you are an old expert.

You can use your best sharpies, you did them, i'm an artist. Let's keep going. That's amazing good! Thank you. We're all we're all cheering on great okay.

We got lindsey. Have you on lindsay hello, everyone so nice to meet you both? This is just an honor. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Lindsey, i think uh michelle was chopping when she introduced you, so maybe you can introduce the company one more time and then we'll just go in here sure i'm lindsay with green wallscapes. We create um, preserved, moss walls and ship them all over the us and canada. We do projects um, we'll do probably about 300 to 350 projects this year, um some like the size beside behind me. You know small lots of different designs.

We also do work with succulents and other things like that. What's great and the solution that we've created um completely by accident by the way, um is no watering, no special light requirements, so it works really well um in uh part of the homes, yeah and homes and homes and offices all over the place. So it looks beautiful, thank you. That means so much to me wow.

How much are how much are they um? They all there's a price per square foot where they range um. So like the pieces behind me, each one of these is about eight hundred dollars. Um, because they're, all you know, custom handmade, yeah, yeah beautiful, but then we also have where we really make our money is large-scale commercial applications of materials. So um we've worked with companies like starbucks and stella artois and like a lot of major uh, huge real estate, development firms and things like that, uh we do their lobbies, we do.

You know all sorts of different tenant improvement, spaces, and things like that. So we have you know just me and my my four team members um have done work with some crazy brands. We like, we can't even believe it sometimes good for you, yeah, yeah, um, and so anyway. I wanted to ask you guys some questions about um, hiring and retaining talent in this very tight market.

Um. What we do, there's no school, there's no moss school. So we want to train people um, but they have to have sort of an aesthetic eye, they have to have um and they also have to be okay with like physical um, you know, labor, there's a lot of lifting and moving and all that kind of stuff That goes with you need you need to make an incredibly smart upfront filter for applicants. You should have a page on your site where you and your team have an incredible video.

That's two three minutes long where you really go deep into this okay and then a series of like 15 to 20, very specific questions. You you need to filter out. People got it. You need to like really it's about it's about being vulnerable and authentic, like this was something i really struggled with for a long time.

I you know, because i would just blast out like come work at vaynermedia and then everybody would come, but i didn't put them in a position to really filter themselves out. You need to like really go there and like be self-deprecating and fun with it like, and you need to do physical, labor and then like somebody's. Then you click on you know, then the sh, the video shows one of you, one of the people working on it. Carrying and they turn like this stuff's heavy, you know like you need to like give everybody.

I i think the video in itself could become a marketing tool, god willing it goes a little viral, but i think that's like when you're that specific. I think that you know travis says higher recruiter. I'm not a fan of that as much though i love recruiters and i'm sure, there's plenty that'll be great at it. I'm a huge fan of a heavy filter, that's very unique to you, based on the very big uniqueness.

That's a really good idea and um. It will work yeah by the way, and then the first thing i would do once that page is up is email it to everybody who bought the product. Oh okay, oftentimes. Some of the best early employees are early customers of the thing totally oh interesting, interesting, um and then um.

So i wanted to ask you just to sort of change gears here for a second um. So right now everything we do is custom. So there's some limitations with that, because you know how long it takes to get the moss and some other things like that. Should we be looking at repeatable, non-custom, moss, art options right now, like i mean currently right now, i'm completely sold out until the end of the year, almost um and everyone's like oh hire more employees, but with the supply chain challenges right now.

It's really hard hard. Um, so have you thought, have you thought about? Are you able to pre-sale? Yes, yes, everything is pre-sold, oh even better. I mean, as long as you make promises to customers. One of the biggest changes i made to my dad's business.

Was we pre-sold wine? Sometimes that was coming out 18 months later. Oh that's interesting! Now that was a standard practice in the wine business. It was called futures right. You would buy the new bordeaux year before it was even bottled, maybe a little bit less standard in your world, but i will say: authenticity always plays you as the founder right.

Even just you're, like you know, you're just extremely bubbly and positive and like have really like your video, just saying: hey, you know on the product, page, hey supply chain, sure you're, all aware this is just going to be six months out because of that we're even Being more aggressive with the price here, i i think pre-selling is something that people are underestimating in this moment in time. Right yeah, i mean we have deposits till the end of the year already so it's you know. The other thing is when you're selling at that level, your pricing might be too low. Yeah.

It's really not that's. What's shocking it really it really. It really doesn't. Have everything have gone through the roof right now.

I think engine is closer to 40 linz. I think you're missing something very important um, it's really not because you may be premium in your category. You just might not realize how premium your brand is. Okay, i i thank you.

You understand just because you're just because you're 800 bucks and all your competitors are 500 cartier doesn't worry about what other people sell. Their rings for nike doesn't worry what other brands you might have just put yourself in a position where you are not maximizing your float in the difference between you and other brands. There's a lot of agencies that don't cost a million dollars to get out of bed, but we do you know and so like right, but then they get to talk to you gary and that's. What's so exciting! That's that's right! That's that's! That's! That's right, but i mean i think, that's that's the biggest point here right like clearly.

You've done something that may uh have also created that incredible brand arbitrage and i think that's remarkable and i would not be scared to try. Listen. One thing. One thing i can tell you as somebody who sold things since he was five years old selling flowers at door to door.

You can always lower your price. That is true, yeah and, and just remember, the incredible testing infrastructure of out there do one drop of the exact same thing say: you have exactly 500 units and see if they sell out in a day like when you create this brand on like limited quantities. It's like great people want a custom piece and then they might want three more walls in their house that are done by that, like just just don't be afraid of that testing, and i actually think i i really like the idea of even testing higher prices. Honestly, i think the market is crazy right now and there is almost insatiable um.

You know these governments printed unlimited cash like we have to recalibrate the world. Yeah america printed america printed 15 of all the money it's ever printed, but it's history in its. I didn't finish: it gets crazier in its history, 15 or 14, or definitely over 10 and below 20 percent of all the money. It's printed in the history of america in an 18-month period during covent that money's in the system now right, and so, if blueberries are up by double, then why can't a moss paint? You know picture go from 800 to 1300 or at least 9.99, which is that last dollar, before the mental threshold of a thousand okay, it's worth trying absolutely absolutely try it out and post.

It share share your story on social, we'll, we'll keep commenting and we want to see how it goes awesome. Thank you. So much can i ask you one more question: yeah one more um, so you know i have a small team right now. I love my team.

They're my rider dies and that's so awesome there, i'm starting to see like for us to really be able to take it to where i want to go, we're going to need to bring some more hires and it's going to change um, the environment, probably um. How do you guys balance like good vibes millennial, you know feel goodness with sort of profitability, and you know having to stay on the sort of business and numbers side of things um, because i find sometimes i'm a little too soft on one um and it impacts The other, the right to be profitable or the ability to be profitable gives you the right to do whatever the you want, and that's what you have to keep telling your team is that when, when we're profitable, we have the luxury of being able to launch new Products build new things, support the charities. We want support each other like that, doesn't exist if this business is not profitable and is not making money and and that people actually understand when you give them reality, i i even think the most dreamy millennials when you look at them dead in the whites of Their eyes and you're, like you know, this is the reality of of how this is going to shake out, and this is why this is the most important i mean i tell our team all the time. What we're doing is very hard we're creating a new asset class.

We have a lot of people that are in the system that are rigged against us. This is i you didn't come here, because this was going to be easy and reminding people that they can do hard things that they were built for hard teams. They have a team that cares about them that there's a lot of kindness around them. Like that, i i think that is, that is what happens, but don't let people because then other people start controlling the narrative in your company, and you know this exists because you built it and you dreamt it and you've kept the thing profitable and and if they Understand that you actually stop as soon as you set that standard, you have a lot less of these conversations and it becomes actually a lot easier.

Okay, my take on that is yes, comma um. I call vaynerx the honey empire, i believe, in honey over vinegar. I believe in kindness, i believe, in all good feelings all the time, because people go faster when you're worried about the politics you go slow. I believe that business is completely misunderstood.

I don't believe in sharp elbows i i don't think that being kind means you're a pushover um. I think what you need to make sure is that your candor is on point a weakness of mine for 20 years. So what you do, what you need to be careful of is is the cat is creating. You know entitlement because you're not cancerous, along with the kindness and the other thing that you have to remember, is whether you're four people or 4 000 people, one human being, can change the culture.

You've got to cut out cancer when you observe it right, so don't be scared about going from. How many are you at well, so we're at four four and we're going to hire probably three to four more four four to eight is a piece of cake to keep everything you want. It just might mean that you need to fire person number six three weeks in to their tenure. Mm-Hmm, don't be scared of the hiring.

The hiring is guessing right. The firing is knowing yeah 100, which is also one of my least favorite. I'm like can i hire somebody who will just fire people for me, because that is my least favorite. By the way you absolutely can um human that it's hard to fire people.

You should never want to take that trait away from yourself. That's the it's! The worst thing, but for me i hated it, but i will tell you without a shadow of doubt. My core weakness in 25 years was the lack of candor that led to me surprise firing people once i finally got that up. Yeah awkwardness, please please, please either you could absolutely hire somebody to fire, make somebody your number two and make her him in charge of operational, hiring and firing, and then sally or rick will do the firing and you'll tell them to.

I did it for years. Then i wanted to develop it, but for years i was like dad. You need to fire that person bobby my cousin that wine library fire that person aj fired up like so you know, and and eventually i realized it was too much of a vulnerability to not have the ability to be candarous. I added the word kind to it and now kind candor has set me free and made me a better operator yeah, because i think that the entitlement thing i i do kind of go back and forth with that a little bit.

You know, because sometimes i feel like well, i'm being so gentle that i'm not getting what the business is. That's that's exactly what is possible and what you need to do is call a five-person kind. Camera meeting, okay be vulnerable. Ladies gentlemen, i find myself being too kind and i'm starting to build subconscious, and now it's conscious resentment towards some of you or sometimes on how we roll.

I don't want to be that person. I don't want to do that to you um. This is what i'm going to need, maybe in my baby steps to being more candace, i'm going to send a friday email and observations. The tone is positive, i'll put a bottle of jihad emojis, and so this vulnerability this.

This vulnerability and honesty is an incredibly powerful opportunity, yeah and it's, and i think that you have to change your mindset to actually believe it's cruel to not tell the truth. It's cruel to actually not tell people where they stand and how they're doing i think yeah, but michelle i'm sort of interrupt but karina z said. I think it's more kind to be blatantly honest about employee performance right. The problem is blatantly radical.

Candor versus kind candor like like what ends up happening is people end up delivering it poorly. Oh yeah. You can't be an man and you're. No, no one's gon na even listen, they're, just gon na be hurt, comma.

If you go straight straight, not yeah, but if you go straight there will be inherent fear and fear is poison yeah. It is poison and we really don't do that. But yes, but it requires candor, hence kind candor. You have to come with compassion points of view.

You know and and people's you know again bruce says clear - is kind sure you may feel like you are clear, but you have to be empathetic and compassionate to how one receives it. If somebody was parented in a way where they over cuddled everything, any level of clear, proper feedback is perceived as a negative. We have to be compassionate to this well gary, i i have to say i've been following you for like literally 10 years, and this is like so amazing. Thank you so much for your time.

I really mean it's like me so much well, i'm so happy to get to know you and - and it's just been so wonderful. Thank you guys, both you're, very sweet. Thank you and lindsay. Can you do me a favor? Can you send me an email to gary at vaynermedia and say i was just on the show with you michelle i'd like to buy a moss thing and hang it up.

That means so much. Thank you guys both so i'm sorry we're getting emotional. This is just a really big deal. It's amazing i'm playing big hugs thanks lindsay.

That was awesome. I mean what an incredible story - and i think it's you know super important discussion about how you have to deal with some of the harder things in business that people don't want to talk about. They want to talk about everything going well, they don't talk about the days that we have underperformers and the days that things are not working and how to deliver those messages but um. Let's take some questions from the audience.

You've got a system for this michelle. Oh there we go any advice for an administrator with creative leanings without an outlet to explore these dreams. Um, i don't know i got. I got a big one greg.

I really really really really think greg side. Hustle you've got to start an nft project. Please, please i'll tell you why, god forbid aka slang term, for god, willing one nft, collector or influencer finds a liking to it. You could be a full-time artist in five minutes if you are creative that way, um in visual form video yeah drawing sketching doodling.

Please go that route if it's a different, creative essence. Look for companies like vaynermedia. We hire people in creative that have no creative background. They come from administrative.

They come from the concrete business. They come from sales. There are optimistic, curious companies out there find them. Oh there's another good uh question: how can a small business in the custom apparel business that can't afford the dev work for smart contracts embrace nfgs by putting out a tweet with the hashtag nft and finding somebody who's willing to take a piece of the action to Do the tech work for three free matt there's a ton of those people yeah? I love you get involved, get involved in discords, matt put in the groundwork like i did when i was starting wine library, tv hours and hours of groundwork on twitter and discord.

You will find tons of devs to do it for free, yeah, okay, next one um just getting started, not free. Excuse me just for clarity. They'll, take a piece of the action, they'll say matt. I want 10 of the initial sales in the royalties yeah and that's fair, because honestly, this is not going to get off the ground unless you do it um.

So i got another one. Just getting out of um started in the supply chain business and due to container shortages facing some difficulties. How to keep yourself going through some of these toughest times in your business, okay, rowhead uh container prices are absolutely out of control. I mean from three grand i've seen canada prices at fifteen to twenty thousand dollars.

There is no simple way these are going to come down, because ports are full, shipping containers are full and unless you have massive volumes, it's extremely difficult to negotiate right now, um, and so i i think it is figuring out a way to beg, borrow and steal And see if you can actually solve the problem, seeing if you can look for manufacturing um in other places, but it's actually. I think your question is a little bit different, which is like how, as an entrepreneur, do you pick yourself up when you're down and for me it's always actually listening to other entrepreneurs, understanding that, like even what seemed to be the most successful businesses, almost failed. Like 20 times as they were being built and uh, and then having that circle of friends and founders, uh and other people that are building businesses, that can be like yeah, i mean i'm in the same show as you are, so here's either my ideas or here's. How i can solve it, but i think you know misery, loves company and that that group of my own entrepreneurial friends has been critical uh.

I also think i also think there's moments in time where you can't do anything yeah. Like you know, a global pandemic came along, like i don't care how good of a business, woman or man you were what in europe, when world war ii broke out, your business wasn't as good right, like that's just real life, and so we are living through a Global pandemic, where the small group of shipping companies have finally used this moment to create much more margin and the walmarts and the costco's and things that nature have lost their leverage, and you know michelle you're more educated, maybe not maybe in this than i am. I don't think containers are coming down anytime soon they are not. They are not all.

This infrastructure is not there for these to come down. That's right, so this could be it i mean. Maybe they go down from 15 and 20 to 10 and 12, but the days of three have no rationale to come back unless governments regulate and so which they have no incentive to do and no right, it's kind of like it's kind of like it's cut. It's pressuring, like it's not gon na happen.

It's just that's right. It's dealing with uh dealing with your business. So what that's gon na do is it's gon na lead to india and the us and parts of europe and other parts of the world to probably start really aggressively on the 10-year plan 10-year plan building out manufacturing. I think people are.

You know it's okay. This is when you pivot, you know. Michelle's point is absolutely well taken, but the misery loves company when your business is never going back to that place is a you know. E-Commerce came out.

It happened, which meant you're never going back to just having leverage as a big box. Retailer yeah, like that's like you know, and so containers are here to stay at high prices, wrap your head around that and decide what you're gon na do. Okay, i thought we were wrapping up, but we got one more. What trends do you see in a post, ios 14 world when it was harder to reach customers um, i'm gon na go real fast and i'll.

Let you wrap up the show. I think people are gon na have to get better than just doing: math arbitrage on facebook and instagram. How about that uh? You know like yes, i understand you can't read cookie and read: people got very lazy. It was easy to build a dtc brand yeah facebook instagram at scale.

Big brands didn't understand how big those platforms were build. A good shopify build a good media plan, run good math. Many people in the world are good. At math go to sleep, it's going to go back to branding and marketing and absolute creativity.

You will have to get 100 and get them talking about influencers, starting your own media company, uh still doing social media marketing, but doing it from a brand standpoint. Finding new ways: building your own first party data, there's a million things that are gon na happen. It's gon na get harder for sure, and i think the best you know we talked about this previously but like this will be like when email just declined, and we just had to figure out what that next generation is. It is there right, it is in new platforms.

It's in new ideas like it's there, but we're gon na have to go, build it gary. This is so much fun, as always great show. Thank you so much for having me as your partner in crime on yeah fridays on this special thursday, which i'm predicting thursday will get more juice than people. Think, because we're both very busy - and we just might not make some fridays in the future.

So it's a lot of fun. Thank you, bio entrepreneurs and friends. We are back october, 8th uh next week, if you want to apply for the show, go to clear.com fyf, that's yeah fridays, for a chance to be on next week's. Show i'm really looking forward to to seeing the new folks there cheers youtube watcher.

What's up it's garyvee! First of all, thank you so much. I hope, you're doing super well during these times. I also want to ask you please subscribe, because my commitment and exploration of youtube is about to explode stories, polls, more content, more engagement, more surprise and delight. This is the time to subscribe.

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