Loading summary
Transcript71 lines
- [00:00]
A
There are two types of business owners. Those who are busy and those who want to be busy. Toast is designed for both with tools to keep you humming and help turn grind into growth.
- [00:11]
B
That's how you turn busy into business.
- [00:13]
A
Toast built for busy. You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast presented by gohighlevel.com for a free 30 day trial of the best all in one digital marketing software tool on the planet. Just go to gohighlevel.com travis. What's going on everybody? Welcome back to the Travis Makes Money podcast where it's a mission to help you make more money. On this episode of the show, we're continuing with our compilation series to highlight some of the amazing guests we've had on the show in the first six months of 2026. Again, I know we release a lot of content here so I know some of this kind of gets lost in the noise. So I want to make sure that we re highlight some of these conversations because there's been some, some heavy hitters here. Some, some low key heavy hitters. So this episode is all about entrepreneurship. Some of the people who we've interviewed that just do it really well. The first one is my good friend Chris Hunter. Chris is the co founder of a little known alcoholic beverage from back in the day called Four Loko which that brand is still around and still does multiple nine figures in revenue and it also owns a bunch of other alcohol, alcohol brands and things like that. But then a while back Chris stepped away from that business and partnered with and acquired a controlling stake in a small company called Koya Protein, which is a plant based protein brand. And now that is not a little known small brand. It is all over the place in tens of thousands of retail locations across the country. If you've ever gone to a Starbucks and see their little protein drinks in the grab and go there, it's probably a Koya protein drink. So Chris knows how to build launch scale beverage brands. Both like, both of the ones that he's built have been multiple nine figures in annual revenue type of companies. And so Chris is one of those guys that I think is a wildly underrated entrepreneur and somebody who I go to for personal help and advice every once in a while as well. Very, very nice guy, family man, just really, really like anytime I could spend some time with Chris. Then next we have Damon Darnell. The reason I chose Damon for this episode is that I just loved this as a potential business. For anybody who's listening to the show. He started in the drone industry back in the 90s. So most people think of the drone industry being, you know, mid 2010s, like 2015 to 2020 was sort of like a big spike in everybody getting drones and flying all over the place and running into problems. And Damon was doing drone of drone business. He landed his first drone contract back in like or something like that. And so since then he's also helped thousands and thousands and thousands of people start their own drone businesses. And we give like really into the weeds on breaking down what it looks like. Step one, step two, step three, how do you start a business with drones? And what other, you know, what, what's the, what's the blue ocean in that space? And so I really like the margins. I really like the business. Really like the scalability or the non scalability. You could do it as a side hustle or you could turn it into a full time business. So really, really interesting conversation with Damon Darnell. And then we have Rick Jordan. Rick is the founder of a cyber security firm that he actually took public a few years back. He's also done a ton of podcasts and media and branding and stage speaking and all that kind of stuff. So we talk a little about personal branding, we talk about what it's like to take a company public and all that type of stuff. So Rick's really, really interesting guy and again, another, another underrated entrepreneur. So please enjoy this episode on entrepreneurship on the Travis Makes Money podcast. So dude, catch me up on Koya. What's been going on the last couple. I know it's been probably two, three years since we've done an episode on the show. So catch me up. How's everything been going? What you guys focusing on these days?
- [03:39]
C
Yeah, gosh, it's about two years ago. Cause I launched the book right at that time.
- [03:44]
A
That's right, yeah.
- [03:45]
C
What's gone on in Koya since then? All right, so at that time we were a refrigerated beverage company. So everything we did was perishable. So sold in the produce section of retailers. And Starbucks, as you mentioned, 35,000 retailers across the country. And we were talking to our, and listening to our customers at the time and there were two requests. One was how do we buy this in bulk because we sell single bottles and how do we get this delivered? And neither of those were really doable, at least profitably with a refrigerated beverage. So we pivoted and launched a shelf stable line or portfolio of products which is our nutrition shakes which are up on Amazon and top 20 brand in protein. We launched a kids line, we launched protein powder and then we launched an Elite. We have a line that's called Elite, that's our higher protein line and we launched a shelf stable version of that. So that was kind of the, the past, let's call it 18 months, the last six months we've been working on a lot of exciting stuff in innovation in protein. You know, like currently protein is everything to everybody.
- [04:50]
D
Right?
- [04:51]
B
Yeah.
- [04:51]
A
As it, as it should be though. You know what I mean?
- [04:54]
C
It should be. We're happy that, that this macro is having its, it's always had its moment but is, is, is at peak, you know?
- [05:01]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [05:02]
C
And specifically for females, right? Because we've talked to females and targeted females as our, as our core audience since day one. But 10 years ago that was very counter intuitive and now it's really a differentiation point for us. But anyways, the point is technology around protein is continuing to grow, evolve and so there's the emergence of what's called clear protein. Because think about, traditionally protein is always like a milky substance. Right. Whether it's in a smoothie or, or ready to drink product like ours. There's a way to break down protein further into like the amino acids and you can create now like a more refreshing like thinner type drink. So we launched a protein soda which is, which is pretty fun and exciting. It has prebiotic fiber in it like the poppies and ollipops of the world. But it also has the benefit of 10 grams of protein and drinks like a soda.
- [05:52]
B
Wow.
- [05:53]
C
We're, we're soft.
- [05:55]
A
That's, that's currently out or.
- [05:57]
C
Yeah. So we launched it on TikTok shops. Maybe I didn't see that months ago. Yeah. And we, we sold out relatively quickly. Then we were working with Target, we did a, a, an exclusive flavor, Golden Whip, which is like a pineapple, you know, doll whip. Okay.
- [06:14]
D
Yeah, yeah.
- [06:15]
C
Along with our Rocket Freeze, which is like, you know, the bomb pop type.
- [06:18]
D
Yeah, yeah.
- [06:19]
C
So we're, we're doing a lto limited time distribution there that's ending next week and then we'll relaunch it on our D2C TikTok shops, Amazon and all that in the, in the coming month. So that's been fun and exciting and kind of a new frontier of protein and it's even leading us into like a protein water. So think of like protein. You know, everyone thinks of it for fitness and muscle building but no one really wants to drink protein at the point of like in mid run, in mid exercise, never or protein water will you allow you to do that. Think of it like a hydration drink with protein. And it's like, okay, kind of a unique angle. So, yeah, a lot's been going on, man, but that's, that's the newest innovation.
- [07:01]
A
Yeah, just a couple of things since we last talked. Yeah, just like, you know, changed the complete face of the business. Opened new distribution channels, invented new products, launched them, sold a bunch of them. Yeah, just a couple of things. Your, Your ability, Chris, to, to take. To take something that's like a small concept and then scale it to the level that you'd be able to do now multiple times over and in different categories of the beverage industry. Right. Like starting with something that's alcoholic and then moving into something that's the, the pinnacle of. Of what we would call healthy
- [07:39]
B
is.
- [07:40]
A
Is. Do you believe that you could do this with anything in that category? Is.
- [07:44]
B
Is it.
- [07:45]
A
Is it because you, you have the ability to sort of see the timing in the market and understand that, hey. That there might be potentially a need for this type of a product or like, how do you make decisions around what you view as worthy of your time to pursue and try to scale into this, you know, billion dollar company?
- [08:05]
C
Yeah. So I think first, I think that this is a realization I had as I've. As I've aged, which is what. In what we're inherently good at is not always obvious to us because we only know it as something that we're. We inherently do and we don't realize that it's special or different than most other people. Right. And so it took time for me to understand that one of the things I think I'm inherently good at is. Is breaking thing that things down to their simplest and most digestible factor or, or way to verbalize or understand. Right. And that could be problems, but in this case it's brands. So.
- [08:42]
D
Yeah.
- [08:43]
C
Yeah. When you simplify Four Loko, it was high alcohol with caffeine. Right. When you simplify Koi, it was delicious plant protein. And so like, when I've seen those opportunities and just kind of like I think I've seen those opportunities because I've just remained a curious participant in the category. Like, I, I like walking grocery store aisles. I always pay attention to the new things that are. Seem to be trending, whether it's on social or just by talking to people. I'll give you an example. You know, creatine, right. Is something that when I was younger was only taken by men that were trying to bulk up and women would bodybuilders yeah, exactly. A woman would never touch creatine. Well, I noticed probably 12 months ago that there just seemed to be this rebranding of, of creatine. There's a rebranding of nicotine right now. Right, but rebranding of creatine. And it seemed to be around cognitive health and it seemed to be really being adopted by women, which was fascinating. And so we quickly started to explore like, hey, how do we add creatine into one of our drinks now that it's acceptable to, to women? And so we launched a elite with creatine line at Publix down here in Florida. It's performing really well and, and we were one of the first, if not the first, to really do that. And so it's, it was, it's really just a bit of like paying attention, trusting intuition. But that like 20 years experience of paying attention is what makes it so simple, I guess.
- [10:14]
A
Yeah, yeah, it's a, like there's, for an untrained eye, it would just look like another trend because I, because like that and, and, and it's the know how too. Right? Like I, I, I've thought about that a bunch of times with the resurgence of creatine and, and how useful and effective it is for multiple parts of your health. And I think that now it's, it's, it's no longer vilified for bulking and it's, it, it's just, it's just like this. I think the, the information or the knowledge is just more ubiquitous. And so it is easier for a female to, to tune into their favorite podcast and hear this doctor talk about how creatine is never going to, it's not going to give you an Adam's apple. And you know what I mean? Like, it's not that, that's, that's steroids, that's not creatine. Creatine's actually really, really helpful for multiple things in terms of like recovery and brain health and things like that. And so I've thought about that. Like, why is there not a. I've literally told my wife this probably like two months ago. I was like, why is there not a protein drink on the market that has creatine in it? Like, why do I always have to add creatine into my protein? Because I'm going to take both of them at the same time. But the difference is I can't do anything about it. I mean, like, I mean, obviously I could do something about it, but the obstacles in the way for me to be able to try to solve that type of a problem are essentially non
- [11:31]
C
existent one side of it, which is a really interesting and insightful view. And then the other side of it, which, which I think is, you know, it's about finding that middle path. The other side of it is inherently and traditionally creatine has been very difficult to keep stable in liquids. That's why you haven't sent creatine drinks in the past. And so a quick reaction could be hey, your comment, oh, why isn't there this. And the quick reaction from somebody who has a lot of historical insight could be oh well, it can't be done because you can't keep it stable in, in beverages, right? Dismiss it. Then we, then we miss it. And instead with through some curiosity we talk to, you know, our product formulator, hey, are there any ways to actually do this? And we found out, well, there have been advancements in that technology and there are ways to keep it stable in, in beverages or in liquids. And hey, we actually do have a benefit for this because since we're refrigerated that actually allows us to get better integrity of creatine in the liquid rather than if we were a shelf stable drink that has to go through different products. So anyways, the, the point is like they're either I can't do anything about it or not with a lot of obstacles or hey, I know too much. It's just not both. Be difficult finding that curiosity. Middle road has been valuable to me.
- [12:53]
A
This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block. Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks.
- [13:07]
C
Gemini and Chrome is here for it,
- [13:09]
A
ready to make anything online make sense. There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required Compatibility and Availability Various 18 this episode is brought to you by State Farm. Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm. It's like thinking your crush messaged you back, but it's just your roommate asking for rent. You wouldn't settle for a disappointing dm, so don't settle for just any insurance. When it comes to getting the help you need. State Farm is a real deal. Like a good neighborhood State Farm is there. Did you have any idea? Like were you already looking in the future being like, look, it's only a matter of time before this technology becomes ubiquitous and everybody's going to understand what this is. Or were you or were you kind of still kind of skeptical about what the future looked like?
- [13:56]
D
No, I knew, I knew what the future was. I didn't know when it was going to come around, if it would come around in my lifetime or if it was, you know, or if it would be sooner or later. But I knew that the, the, the way that things were going, I mean, these drones and, and they, they're still, we're still kind of in the infancy stages of the adoption and the development of these things, but they're going to pretty much just be autonomous. They'll be like sprinkler systems. You know, they'll pop out of the ground and they'll fly their mission on ag, you know, on farms, golf courses, stuff like that. They'll, they'll fly, scan, capture the data, go back under self charging dock, go back underground, auto upload all the data, recharge the AI will process all the data, it'll disseminate it to the spot. Spraying drones, the fertilizing drones, the planning drones, the GPS guided tractors and all that stuff is going to just kind of happen automagically. Yeah, like, like a sprinkler system now. I mean, I'm sure when they first were installed, people were like, oh, oh my gosh, it's amazing, you know, and now we don't even think twice about it.
- [14:54]
A
Take it for granted. Yeah, yeah. At what point did you see like, was there ever sort of like a massive spike in attention or organic traffic to the things that you're working on? And when did that come?
- [15:08]
D
Yeah, well, so it's still not even really there. So, okay, the, the organic traffic isn't there yet. And most, most businesses don't even really know they need drone services. Like, they, it's not even on their radar. It's not. And, and they haven't even really thought about it, which blows my mind. But it's, it's also creates this massive opportunity that we have now because nothing's standardized yet, nothing's really being, you know, serviced out there. That being said, like probably real estate, people taking pictures for realtors of homes and stuff. That is probably the most competitive market that's out there. But depending what report you read, it's somewhere between 7 and 11% saturated. So it's still, it's basically 90% wide open in the most crowded space, you know, out there. So you go to any other industry, if it's like 4% wide open, they're like, oh my God, it's just, it's amazing, you know, and to have that much wide open. It's just crazy. And we've, the FAA has identified over 300 vertical markets in the drone space. And so each one of these, think of them as a division in a drone company. And any one of those could easily generate over six figures a year in revenue, in net revenue for, for somebody or for a company. But to your original point was when, when did things change? And it was about 11 years ago when things really shifted and it's really because of the, the advent of these little microprocessors in our cell phones, accelerometers and electronic gyros. And it brought the technology way down where the drones became easier to fly and harder to crash than ever before. Because that was the big, it was kind of a self regulating industry, meaning it took literally thousands and thousands of flight hours before you were competent enough to do anything. Now I can teach someone in 30 minutes to go start a six figure business as far as the flying capability goes, and they can do it.
- [16:59]
A
Yeah, I remember that I, I got this drone back in, I was like, I did a bunch of photography and stuff like that at the time. And so it was interesting to me already. And we'd done a couple like travel things and my, a couple buddies. Had one, had a couple. And I was like, these are awesome. So I, I was going to this mastermind down in Puerto Rico for this guy who's like a big podcaster at the time. And I was trying to think of like, when I go down there, how do I, you know, how do I give a little bit more value, how do I, from the other people that are going to be there. And my thought was like, oh, he's got this really cool house, awesome view of, of the ocean, beautiful home. I'll take a bunch of drone footage of the event and just like give it to him for free. Because that was sort of the thing at the time. And I, I was trying to get some practice in. But the problem was I lived in this town called Lancaster, California, which is a very big aerospace town, like Edwards Air Force Base is out there. And we lived two miles from Northrop. And so I throw the drone up for the first time in my backyard and immediately I get all these like notifications, like, you know, alerts on my, on my screen. That's basically like you're flying in restricted airspace. You like, you have to land right now type of thing. I was like, holy. I didn't realize that that was even a thing, but I suppose it makes sense. Like you can't just Fly a drone over Northrop and see what they're cooking up over there, you know what I mean? So I couldn't really practice at all. So I get down to Puerto Rico, I throw this drone up in the air again, trying to get a little bit of practice. It's like sunset, and I was like, we're gonna get some cool footage of sunset and everything. And I was on a rooftop of a condo, and I go to land the drone on the rooftop, and I thought that it was, like, much more autonomous of a landing than I realized that it was. So I'm landing this thing, man, and there's like a plant in the corner of this rooftop. And I was like. I was trying to make sure that it landed on the rooftop, but it looked like it was gonna crash, like, before the roof, you know, and, like, hit the side of the building. So I was, like, freaking out. I was trying to get it there. One of the propellers catches a leaf on the. On this plant, throws the drone into the wall. It crashes. And two. I only got one propeller replacement with the drone. Two of the propellers broke. I was like, well, I guess. I guess there goes that whole idea. Luckily, I. Luckily I ended up taking the drone back, and they took it back because I got another propeller replacement. And I. And I actually never flew a drone again after that. But it was. It was, It. It was. It was just hilarious because it was like I went through this huge, you know, effort to try to create some additional value here and ended up almost literally crashing and burning in front of my eyes. But that was my experience buying a drone. I'm curious, though, for the. You've helped over 15,000 entrepreneurs now launching profitable drone businesses. If you were starting once a day or you're working with somebody who's totally green to this space, what would you recommend to them? Is it the real estate space? Is it a different space? Are there. Is there a bluer ocean that you would recommend? Something that you're seeing that people aren't even thinking about? What would you recommend is like a 1, 2, 3. Here's how to start a drone business and make your first six figures.
- [20:00]
D
Yeah, I think that we kind of have identified, like, you know, five, what we call low hanging fruit or fastest path to cash opportunities that require very little skill to get into it, very little investment. Meaning you can get into it with a pretty inexpensive drone and get into it, and you don't need a lot of. And there's not a lot of backend that's required additional software or anything like that, so your ramp up time's pretty quick before you start earning, earning cash. And like we, we do a three day immersion training program and we, we basically have a challenge that, you know, the, the day after the event you can go out and make money. And we walk them through. You know, it's about a three hour process of kind of step by step, exactly what you're going to do and how you're going to do it, but essentially working with local businesses. So I think I would recommend one of those kind of low hanging fruit opportunities because as you know with entrepreneurship that one of the biggest challenges, as you mentioned, is all the hurdles and the failures and the crashing and burning and all the stuff like what you experienced just with flying the drone. I mean that's just one little aspect of it. And then you get in the whole business side and, and then trying to sell it to customers if you're, if the customer doesn't know they need it, man, it's a much harder sale. Great opportunity and more upside. But it also, the sales cycle could be 8, 6, 12, 16 months as you're going through it. And most people, especially starting out, don't have the tenacity to be able to do that. So we're really big on getting people their first wins and getting the cash quickly and easily. And then once you start generating, you know, once you're making 150, 200, $250,000 kind of on autopilot, you build up your systems and your infrastructure and you've got it, you've got it kind of dialed in, then you can go off and get into the more exotic or lucrative opportunities. Some of the mapping or photogrammetry type of things or even like we have one guy that's doing aerial funerals now where they're doing, he's, he's basically filming and creating a whole legacy video of spreading the ashes over a mountaintop or a river or ocean or wherever and doing phenomenal with that. And he's really, he's really, really blown up with that. But I mean there's everything from doing that to nuclear power plant inspections to doing power washing. We have, we have a couple of guys in our network that are doing high rise power washing. Instead of sending guys up in the scaffoldings and having them basically hand spray them or hand clean it. And it's pretty cool because now you're eliminating any potential risk of human, you know, human injury or loss of life. We can replace basically cameras with LiDAR equipped drones. So there's no visual There, so no one has to worry about peeping Toms or, you know, someone going on, you know, having some guy on a scaffolding looking through the windows and stuff. And they're pretty, most of these, these condo buildings, they're anywhere from, you know, 180,000, upwards of $350,000 annual contracts for these to have their windows clean and stuff. And now we can do it with a drone. So I mean, there's, there's all kinds of stuff that you can get into, but the, the low hanging fruit, which I would say is real estate, aerial imagery, which is basically local businesses, hotels and resorts, and doing what we call integral archive inspections, which are basically basic inspections for highways, bridges, dams, power lines, cell towers, solar farms, wind farm. I mean, there's so much stuff that can be done there. And the fact that these guys aren't using drones for that blows my mind. You know, they had, last year, they had 300, a little over 300 fatalities in doing these inspections across the board in the US and, and 82% of those were just doing a routine inspection a drone could easily do. And we're not doing it yet. And again, it's just, it's a disruptive industry. And I get it. It, it brings in new data. They have to retrain their team. You know, they have to. Everything changes and it creates a little disruption. But the real driver is none of their competitors are doing it yet, so they don't have to do it. And the few that are starting to look and explore, they just recently had a fatality or a couple or a paralyzation or an amputation or, you know, something happened and they're a little more motivated. But it's, you know, those are some incredible opportunities that are out there when
- [24:23]
A
you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work.
- [24:26]
C
Use Indeed sponsored jobs.
- [24:28]
A
It gives your job post the boost it needs to be scratch seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit@ Indeed.com podcast. That's Indeed.com podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero?
- [24:49]
C
This is a job for Indeed. Sponsored jobs.
- [24:53]
A
So good, so good, so good. New summer arrivals are at Nordstrom Rack stores.
- [24:58]
B
Now.
- [24:59]
A
Get ready to save big with up to 60% off brands like Rag and Bone, Levi's, Adidas and free people.
- [25:05]
B
Join the NordicLub to unlock exclusive discounts.
- [25:08]
A
Shop new arrivals first and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack. Yeah. So if you are, let's say you're going to do one of these sort of low hanging fruit things, you're looking to get your first 150, 200,000 in revenue coming in. What does the offer look like? What have you seen is like, hey, this is a reasonable amount to charge for this. This is the deliverables that you're going to be providing to the end user. What's the overall packaging that you recommend for most people?
- [25:45]
D
Yeah. So depending again on what it is. But like real estate, one of the things I love about real estate is you really only have to sell it once. You know, you sell, you sell it once to the realtor and then that realtor is going to get additional listings. You have some realtors that do one listing a year, you get some that do 30amonth. But you know, the one that, the one that does one a year, when they start doing aerial imagery and they start offering that as one of their packages, we often see them go from one to somewhere between six and eight. And historically, over the last 10 years, realtors that are using aerial imagery as part of their marketing plan, like if they go to a listing appointment, which is where they're going, someone's selling their house and that person is interviewing the realtor essentially to see if they want to hire them to sell the house. Well, the, according to the national association of realtors, that 22% of those listing appointments convert. So basically 2 out of 10 people that they see are going to list their house with them when they incorporate Ariel. And we have a, we have a package we've created and tested and split, tested and painlessly, you know, develop. When they, when the realtors offer that to the client, that number goes up to 84%. So they see the 10 people, but now instead of getting two, they get eight and essentially their income goes up 400%. So it's, it's neat to see these success stories. You know, we have one guy in our network that started a while ago with us and he was working with these realtors and they were driving Honda Accords and Toyota Camrys. There were two, two, two guys that are business partners, two and they've, you know, they, they use drones exclusively. Their listings went up, they started selling faster and more houses for more money and moving up the ranks to higher quality homes. Then they moved up to BMWs and, and Mercedes and now they're driving Rolls Royces and Bentleys to show their clients around and they pay him an exclusive to not work with any other realtor in a 1 1/2 mile radius. This geographical area where they farm because they feel like it's, it's their secret weapon. Right. You know, but yeah, no kidding, it's, it's pretty cool that the impact that it has. And the other thing with real estate is that it's not just, you're not just delivering one package, just photos. You can do videos, you can offer Twilight, you can do shorts, you know, kind of vertical shorts for, for YouTube. You can do promo videos for the, for the realtor themselves. We have something called Scenescape360 where it basically is an aerial 360 tour, like a virtual tour of, of the area from the air and then also of the ground all incorporated together. We do these things called X rays where we can go in and, and actually do progression. If it's a home being built or a new construction of the actual building going up. And then we go in on the inside before the Sheetrock goes up. And we do an X ray essentially of everything where every pipe and wire and plumbing, you know, every electrical wire is. And it's. Because it's all lidar based, it's centimeter grade accuracy. So then the Sheetrock goes up, we do the same thing. And so not only does the builder save somewhere around three to $5,000 and having to pay for finishing work when they go in and the low voltage guys go in and tear everything up and now they have to pay to fix that. They know exactly where everything is because it's. If you've ever built a home or dealt with construction stuff, the plans say this, but the reality is their stuff is different. You know, there's a drain pipe here, a fire block there. The wires will run on this side instead of that side. There's a, you know, a plumbing over here, a gas line where it shouldn't be. You know, all that stuff is different. So. And then they're offering that as a bonus to the homeowner when they do buy it and they get this cool thing. I wish I had that for my place.
- [29:29]
A
Yeah, right, right. Yeah, it's cool. It's cool to hear the different applications in the space because like my mind immediately just goes to like, you take pictures. So thinking about all the other. Are there different like pieces of equipment that you need in order to be able to do that? Like if, like if you're, if somebody's just getting started, how much should they expect to spend to like spin up the business.
- [29:47]
D
Yeah, that's a great thing about it. Like you, you can, the drones are tools essentially, right. And you can get different types of tools, but you want to get the right tool for the right job. So there's kind of a, some inexpensive drones that you can get for about a thousand dollars, but really figure 1500 by the time you get the extra props, extra batteries, you know, the stuff that you're going to need. Right. So but for 1500 bucks, you can get started. Real estate takes a little bit more because you also have to have a ground camera. So add another 700 bucks to that for a good DSLR camera to get, to get going. And, and, and you're off to the races with that. And then everything else, you know, goes up from there. You can get like, if you wanted to do golf courses and you wanted to do thermal imagery or NDVI imagery, where we can tell where they're watering too much or not watering enough or over fertilizing or under fertilizing. And then you have a little bit more expensive and comprehensive backend software that analyzes all the data that's that we're processing and putting in. You know, then, then you're looking at closer to a $10,000 drone and you know, an 8 to $12,000 subscription annually for the software to process it and stuff.
- [30:55]
A
Okay.
- [30:55]
D
But again, I don't recommend anyone start with that stuff. You start with the low hanging fruit and then you have your customers pay for your other equipment and software and stuff as you go, as you build up. And that's what we teach people.
- [31:06]
B
While I was doing a computer project for City of Chicago and around that, and while I was at Best Buy, that's when Geek Squad came about. And Geek Squad was like a startup because Best Buy acquired them. They were in Minneapolis, they were doing a couple million a year. So not quite startup like, right. But expanding it nationwide 100% like a startup. That's what it felt like. I was the first one in Chicago and then they come to me and they're like, hey, you know, out of our seven test stores, right. Why are your per ticket dollars three times more than any of the others?
- [31:42]
C
Because.
- [31:42]
A
Do you want fries with that?
- [31:43]
B
Yeah, exactly. That was the question. These corporate guys, I was like, have you ever been to McDonald's? That was the question. Yeah, but from there then I wrote the entire sales playbook for Best buy for business, B2B sales, you know, for these things, which is really like a technical aspect of what they were Doing? They were trying to be a var value added reseller. Right. Doing servers and all of that for small businesses. The installation with Geek Squad, specifically, dedicated business Geek Squad agents. And then that whole thing came crashing down because of bad management. And they laid off 700 of us across the country. Wow. I was no longer like directly in Geek Squad. I was part of this best buy for business because it was the next startup thing. Like, once Geek Squad was up and running, I'm like, well, that was fun. Yeah, I can still do this. Yeah, exactly. So that's when I started as an independent. I was just an independent computer consultant. In 2010, I launched Reach Out. And during that time, I always knew that I wanted recurring revenue. That was one thing I saw during the years with Geek Squad or Radio Shack. It's like, these are always one time sales. You know, nobody ever said, hey, recurring revenue is the best. Rick, you should go. After that, I was just like, I have really young kids and I would like to have a baseline that's really where that came from.
- [32:58]
A
It was sort of just intuition.
- [33:00]
B
Yeah, yeah, you got it, man. And it's obviously, it's still the best to this day.
- [33:05]
D
Yeah.
- [33:05]
B
But that, that was it. And you know, I started with a couple clients that like, hey, Geek Squad sucks. We would love to have you over. One of my first ones was a Buffalo Wild Wings franchise owner. You know, six stores, you know, it was like three grand a month. I mean, that's not enough to obviously have a family on four of them. But I just kept signing people, man. It's just referrals, getting out there, talking about it. You know, I've never been afraid to ask for the sale.
- [33:32]
A
How is that pivoted along the way, man?
- [33:35]
B
It became. There's a, there's a big event that I had in 2015 and it was a, it was a health event. So, you know, I got it up to the point to where I was doing a couple hundred K in my pocket, you know, every year, like making what somebody at a really good job would make. Right. And there, there was a poison pill in that because I was comfortable. And so if I had not gotten as sick as I did, I would not have been brought back to really the core of who I am, which is a startup guy, and grow and keep trying to do more and help more people.
- [34:07]
D
Right.
- [34:08]
B
I wouldn't call it an addiction. It's just how I'm built. Like back Since I was 10 years old, you know, it's. It was a gangrenous gallbladder, you Know, and I've told this story a hundred times, but it's. It put me on my back, right? I was, I almost died on the operating table because I didn't know what it was. It was a long stretch, you know, like 45 minute robotic surgery turned into three hours by hand, you know, and they're like, thank God he was here because he wouldn't have been here tomorrow, you know, so coming out of that and the eight months of anxiety and depression prior to that, just not knowing what was wrong with me, you know, really with my head and coming out, I'm like, you know what? Like, who am I? You know, And I. But I already had the answer to that question because I was able to just revert back to who I was pretty much the entirety of my life. And then also recognize, like, when you're laying there, it's like, okay, there isn't anything that I did to cause this. Yeah, this is just something that happened. Right? Yeah. However, what am I missing out on my life right now? Like, it was just a reflective period. That's it. And then when it changed, it's like I'm not doing really what I would want to do, you know, so even in the tech business, I was like, here's the question I asked. I'm like, I either need to sell it or I either need to find a way to love it.
- [35:23]
A
Something's gotta change.
- [35:24]
B
Yeah, exactly. And the way to love it was to completely let go of the actual tech aspect of it from an operator's perspective and just look at scale and go back all the way to my Radio Shack training as a manager. Right. And go back to the P and L and just be like, okay, I'm going to dial this in. I got this thing to 74% gross margin. It is 100% scalable. At this point, I can start moving forward. But wait, before I do that, I'm also a musician. I love being on stage. Right. I speak all that. I think I need to do some of that too. So I think I need to go on tv. I think I need to get some speaker training. I think I need to do some media training, you know, and then I didn't know this at the time, but it was like the visibility that I was building for myself preceded what I needed the visibility for.
- [36:13]
A
Yeah, you sort of dig your. Well, before your thirsty thing.
- [36:16]
B
Exactly, exactly, man. And now, I mean, before personal brands even really had a name. Right. Is when I started doing TV and speaking and then I started my podcast. Just because a branding agency that I hired literally says, you need a podcast.
- [36:28]
D
Yeah.
- [36:29]
B
You know, people ask, why'd you start a podcast, Rick? I'm like, because they told me I should have one. There's no deep answer.
- [36:37]
A
Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for a 12 month plan. Required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees. Extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. Me slow when network is busy. See terms.