Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / From $100 to 90 Employees: Lessons in Grit with David Feinman

Transcript

From $100 to 90 Employees: Lessons in Grit with David Feinman · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:04
  Entrepreneurship isn't for most people.
• 0:06
  It's because the whole process is pain, right?
• 0:08
  Like.
• 0:08
  Like entrepreneurship is, in my opinion, the best personal growth thing that you could ever do.
• 0:15
  What if you built a thriving company from nothing, lost nearly everything overnight, and then did it all over again?
• 0:23
  Today's guest is David Feynman, a lifelong entrepreneur and the co founder of Viral Ideas, one of the leading video editing and content companies in the space.
• 0:34
  David started with no website, no business cards, and just $100 in his pocket, landing his first client through a college connection and building it from there.
• 0:44
  But the road wasn't smooth.
• 0:46
  When Covid hit, viral ideas lost 90% of its revenue overnight, forcing a complete pivot just to survive.
• 0:54
  And that wasn't even the hardest moment.
• 0:57
  In today's conversation, David gets raw and honest about the real side of entrepreneurship.
• 1:02
  The burnout, the setbacks, the near shutdowns, and why the greatest thing business gives you isn't money or success, but it's the person you become in the process.
• 1:12
  As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.
• 1:18
  All right, David Feynman, welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
• 1:22
  Dave, so excited to be here.
• 1:24
  Great, great name, by the way.
• 1:26
  Love that.
• 1:27
  Yes, sir.
• 1:28
  Yes, sir.
• 1:29
  We appreciate you taking the time to be here.
• 1:32
  David.
• 1:33
  You are a lifelong entrepreneur and you've had quite a, quite an interesting journey from starting as a teenager and multiple businesses.
• 1:42
  You even had a very successful exit along the way.
• 1:45
  And now you've scaled your current company to, to 90 employees and you've been in business over a decade there.
• 1:52
  So we have a whole lot to get into with you that our listeners will certainly find value from.
• 1:57
  But if you can, just to set the stage, can you talk about how you became an entrepreneur?
• 2:05
  It's a wild question.
• 2:05
  And like, I, you know, I don't know if you've ever read the book the Accidental Entrepreneur, but that was definitely my story, right?
• 2:12
  Like, you know, it's something that sort of.
• 2:13
  I fell into when I was younger.
• 2:14
  I was always a super creative person, right, like when I was, when I was younger, when I was a kid, you know, I could be found drawing inventions in a book that I wish I could still find somewhere.
• 2:25
  You know, everything from flying cars to, like, this toilet that would open up in, in a car, right, so that you don't have to stop to go to the bathroom.
• 2:32
  And I, I remember, like, always having that, like, curious mindset, right, Growing up.
• 2:37
  And I think, like, that's the number one crate trait you need as an entrepreneur.
• 2:39
  You need to have like, that beginner's mind, that curious trait.
• 2:42
  And eventually I started to delving into entrepreneurship.
• 2:46
  I started a few businesses in.
• 2:48
  In high school, into college, and all of them had, like, a.
• 2:51
  Some minor degree of success.
• 2:52
  And, you know, as.
• 2:54
  As time went on, it's actually like a funny story.
• 2:56
  I, you know, sold a previous business and.
• 3:00
  And vowed, you know, swore I would never go into entrepreneurship again.
• 3:06
  And I was interviewing to go actually have a job.
• 3:08
  Right after college, I was going to have a job at Google, which by all stretches of imagination, I had, like, recently watched the movie the Internship, and I thought it would be great.
• 3:18
  I thought it would be a great place to work.
• 3:22
  And ultimately I got through one round of interviews and I was like, sort of selling myself on the idea that this was a place for me and got done a second round of interviews, and I was like, all
• 3:32
  right, I guess this is what I'm gonna do.
• 3:34
  And I really sat there, like, introspectively, because at the same time, I was working on, like, a.
• 3:39
  Like, the business that I have today, and I was thinking, like, hey, like, do I want to in 10 years be in the position that the person that I would work for in Echo, But I want to be
• 3:50
  in their shoes.
• 3:51
  And the answer to that question was no.
• 3:53
  So, you know, that, that.
• 3:55
  That really, I think, kicked off for me that I was an entrepreneur, right?
• 3:59
  Like, all the time.
• 4:00
  I had done it accidentally, but, you know, in that moment, I was like, I'm going to do this intentionally.
• 4:06
  Um, and at that point, like, me and.
• 4:08
  Me and my business partner Zach decided to, like, formally form the company and started with a hundred dollars each and a single customer and just sort of started building from there.
• 4:17
  Wow.
• 4:17
  Okay.
• 4:19
  Appreciate.
• 4:19
  Appreciate that intro and that lot to unpack there.
• 4:22
  Let me just ask you.
• 4:23
  So after a previous exit, you said you'd never be an entre.
• 4:27
  You wouldn't delve back into entrepreneurship.
• 4:30
  Why were you feeling that way at the moment?
• 4:33
  Oh, gosh, it's the same way that.
• 4:35
  It's the same reason I think entrepreneurship isn't for most people.
• 4:38
  It's because the whole process is pain, right?
• 4:40
  Like, entrepreneurship is, in my opinion, the best personal growth thing that you could ever do.
• 4:48
  When I first jumped into podcasting, I had no idea what I was doing.
• 4:53
  I relied heavily on my sales background to do cold outreach and get guests.
• 4:58
  But let's be honest, that strategy isn't sustainable for everyone.
• 5:01
  And it's why we see so many podcast quit before they get any traction.
• 5:06
  If I had it all to do over again, I'd join podmatch right from the start.
• 5:12
  Pod Match is like the Amazon prime of podcast.
• 5:15
  Their AI driven matching doesn't just find any guests, it finds the right guests.
• 5:20
  No more chasing, just high quality, authentic connections and top tier support.
• 5:26
  If you're a podcaster looking to scale without the burnout, I'd highly recommend PodMatch.
• 5:32
  Just click the link below and start matching today.
• 5:36
  With that growth comes levels of pain.
• 5:37
  And through that initial, through that venture, I had endured levels of pain, pain that I didn't think I'd be able to experience and wasn't able to endure.
• 5:46
  I got through it and got to the end and I was like, okay, like, I don't know if I want to go through this journey again and go through this painful process.
• 5:55
  I of unpacking, you know, who the customer is, the people dealing with people that aren't great for the company, firing people, hiring people, dealing with cash flow issues.
• 6:04
  Like, I didn't think I wanted to go through that pain again, right?
• 6:07
  So when I ultimately decided like, okay, I do want to do it, it was kind of like, you know, without knowing intentionally, it was like kind of telling myself like, okay, you can do this, you can go through
• 6:18
  this again.
• 6:18
  You can endure, endure this pain again.
• 6:21
  And, you know, you can go create something great on your own.
• 6:23
  That's, that's your own thing that, that you can, that you can get through.
• 6:27
  So that was sort of the conversation I had with myself after I, after, as I was starting this initial business was, you know, I don't want to do it again because it was painful, but could I do it
• 6:37
  again?
• 6:37
  Even despite the fact that I know the journey is going to be painful and long?
• 6:42
  Yeah, so true.
• 6:43
  Right?
• 6:43
  And one of the reasons I started this show too was just to highlight the, the realities of entrepreneurship because so often it's glamorized on like the Instagra and all these places.
• 6:55
  But the reality is so much of the, the journey is struggle and pain and feeling like you want to give up and not knowing kind of what, what to do at times and having to fall on your face
• 7:07
  and go through discomfort and repeat it over and over again, even when it looks like nothing's happening.
• 7:12
  Right.
• 7:14
  I agree with that statement.
• 7:15
  You know, it's all about, you know, it's, it's sort of like that Rocky quote, like it doesn't matter how many times you get knocked down, it's about how many times you get backed up again.
• 7:24
  Right?
• 7:24
  So, you know, getting in for one more round in the fight is what keeps you alive as an entrepreneur?
• 7:29
  Right.
• 7:30
  Like the whole thing is just, you know, don't die over time and eventually like success will come with entrepreneurship.
• 7:37
  And I think that that rhythm and that that idea is, is something that not a lot of people want to buy into because it's not instant gratification.
• 7:47
  Right.
• 7:47
  Like for example, when I, when I first started my, my company, I had friends that were getting nice paying jobs right out of college and you know, they were going to step into companies, gave them benefits, and I
• 7:58
  chose the path of moving back home and making $500 a month for that first, for that first year or so.
• 8:05
  And I think that in and of itself is a painful choice to take.
• 8:08
  Right.
• 8:08
  That, that was a painful choice.
• 8:10
  But I also think that it was my advantage at the time.
• 8:13
  Right.
• 8:13
  Like I was 21 years old.
• 8:14
  I, like, I didn't need much in life to sustain myself.
• 8:18
  So it was like no better time than to take that risk and to endure that pain because it didn't come at a cost of anyone else but myself.
• 8:25
  Yeah, that's, that's great, great retro, retrospection there I guess too in terms of looking at it now because over a decade in and you've built this company up to, to over 90 employees and yet it all started from
• 8:40
  you being willing to be humble and, you know, live on not a lot of money and having to move home while like you said, you're watching your friends get promotions and good paying jobs and kind of have, you
• 8:52
  know, totally different lifestyle at the time.
• 8:56
  100.
• 8:57
  All right, so let's talk about your current company.
• 9:00
  It's called Viral Ideas.
• 9:03
  And you said you, your partner and you started that with just a hundred dollars each.
• 9:08
  Yeah, yeah.
• 9:09
  So a lot of people think you need a lot of money to start a business and I always question that notion because there's always a version of the business you could start if you are capital constrained, which we
• 9:19
  were at the time.
• 9:20
  So we each put in $100 and we found one customer to pay us upfront for three months, which gave us three months of Runway to number one, both impress that customer.
• 9:30
  And we also gave us the opportunity to just get started, get incorporated, do all the admin stuff that you need to do to get a company up and running.
• 9:39
  And at the time we didn't have the normal trappings of the business.
• 9:42
  We didn't have business cards, we didn't have, you know, we didn't have a website, we didn't have anything except for ourselves, a little bit of a past reputation Because I had that little bit of advantage and this like,
• 9:55
  idea of what we wanted to do for customers.
• 9:58
  And we sold this customer on it and got that customer in the door and then another one came and another one came and we just continued to always be doing great work and knowing that we're only as good
• 10:09
  as the last project that we do, which is honestly at a.
• 10:12
  The point in time that we are in this company, like one of our core tenets that we teach.
• 10:15
  Every single person that enters our organization is like, do great work.
• 10:19
  That's the number one thing.
• 10:20
  Your, Your last project is only your last project.
• 10:22
  Your last sales is.
• 10:24
  Is the new low.
• 10:25
  It's the new.
• 10:25
  It's the new bar, right?
• 10:27
  Like, you know, you got to keep pushing upwards.
• 10:31
  So that's how we got started with effectively no money.
• 10:33
  And it was just the two of us.
• 10:34
  I would go out and sell and my business partner would.
• 10:36
  Would fulfill the orders that would come in.
• 10:39
  Wow.
• 10:40
  So how.
• 10:40
  I mean, was that a personal relationship?
• 10:43
  That first customer or someone you knew?
• 10:45
  Because that's.
• 10:45
  That sounds like a.
• 10:48
  A tall ask in terms of.
• 10:49
  You have no.
• 10:50
  No real company.
• 10:51
  It's just two.
• 10:52
  Two guys and you get someone to basically prepay you for.
• 10:55
  For three months in advance to which would ultimately allow you to even incorporate and do all just get the company set up.
• 11:04
  It was, it was actually through a professor in college that introduced me to this EMBA program.
• 11:09
  And there was a guy in the EMBA program that was starting a business and working on a business and I guess kind of met us, felt like we were like some hungry guys that could help out his business.
• 11:21
  And, you know, it worked out for both of us.
• 11:22
  So it was like through that connection and networking and like putting myself in a position to do that, that I was successful.
• 11:30
  And you know, I remember it was the exact class, I remember the exact professor.
• 11:34
  It was this guy named George.
• 11:36
  And the guy, the guy disliked me horribly as a student.
• 11:39
  You know, I was, I was like a little bit pompous, right?
• 11:42
  And I was like, you know, he was teaching the sales class and I was like, when are you going to teach me about sales?
• 11:47
  All you're teaching me out is out of this textbook.
• 11:49
  Teach me how to sell, right?
• 11:50
  Like, I had already like worked in a business and I built a business, I had sold a business.
• 11:54
  And I come in and was.
• 11:57
  Was almost like kind of rude to the guy.
• 11:59
  And I remember the guy kind of recognized in me and, and said retrospectively that, you know, I was.
• 12:06
  I was either gonna like end up on the street one day, or I was gonna end up, you know, being something someday and introduce me to, to this EMBA program with that, with that in mind.
• 12:17
  Like, hey, you guys gotta like, help out this guy because he's got all this energy, you know, and, and, you know, all this, all these ideas.
• 12:24
  And, you know, you guys, you guys have to kind of wrangle him in a little bit because, you know, he's, he's a little bit disruptive to my class, so.
• 12:31
  Wow.
• 12:31
  Okay, so.
• 12:32
  And you mentioned too, not having all the things that people think you need to have to start a business, meaning a website, business, car.
• 12:41
  All this other you, all you had was basically this idea, this vision, and the ability to do the work, and that's how you started.
• 12:48
  And you got one customer, then you got another, you got another.
• 12:51
  I mean, what, what was the trajectory like once you got rolling in those early days?
• 12:57
  Oh, gosh.
• 12:57
  I mean, I don't want to make it sound like it was a linear growth, because it wasn't.
• 13:00
  Right.
• 13:00
  Like, we'd go up a couple steps and then we'd come back down and we go up a couple steps.
• 13:04
  And like, every, every level that you go up in entrepreneurship unlocks a whole new set of challenges, right?
• 13:10
  And, you know, I'm currently here and I want to get here, so, like, I'm unlocking new challenges now, but if I look back retrospectively, like, the, the challenges that we had then were like, okay, we would sell a
• 13:20
  bunch of work.
• 13:21
  We would, then our plates would be full and we didn't know what to do.
• 13:23
  So we're like, okay, let's hire someone to help.
• 13:24
  So we hired our first intern, and that first intern worked in the business for a while, and then eventually we hired our first full time employee.
• 13:33
  And then that first full time employee didn't work out, so we had to go find someone else.
• 13:36
  And then we slowly started to take two or three steps forward and one step back, and we sort of did the thing the hard way, right?
• 13:43
  Like, if I was to go back and shake young Dave and be like, hey, you need to find someone that's two to three steps ahead of you to like, help you help them help you see the pathway to
• 13:54
  get to where you want to go versus, like all this trial and error.
• 13:57
  But effectively, for the first, call it, call it five or six years in the business, we just played in the trial and error game.
• 14:02
  Like, it was like, hey, we want, we know we want to get here.
• 14:05
  This is how we think we could do it.
• 14:06
  Let's run an experiment where we didn't really buy ourselves an insurance policy, which didn't come in the form of, like, a coach or, like a mentor or someone like that.
• 14:14
  And we didn't do that early on, and I wish we would have, but, yeah, that's how it went, Right?
• 14:18
  It was like we would sell some more work.
• 14:20
  We would do the work.
• 14:20
  We would.
• 14:21
  Your customers would like the work.
• 14:22
  We would find another customer, you know, keep stacking customers on top of each other.
• 14:27
  We would refine the product, make things better, you know, productize things a little more and, you know, continue on our way.
• 14:34
  Okay.
• 14:35
  All right.
• 14:35
  So first five, six years, trial and error phase, you're just kind of, like you said, two steps forward, one step back, essentially.
• 14:42
  But you're.
• 14:43
  You're growing, you're figuring things out, but there's still a ton of challenges.
• 14:47
  Was there a certain inflection point where.
• 14:49
  Where things really took off?
• 14:51
  Yeah, actually, right before co.
• 14:53
  Things were going great.
• 14:54
  You know, we were consistently doing amazing revenue every single month.
• 14:59
  And then co hit, and unfortunately, we lost 90% of our revenue literally overnight.
• 15:07
  And we.
• 15:08
  We had.
• 15:09
  We had to, like, dig our heel.
• 15:10
  We had to dig our heels in at that moment, right?
• 15:11
  Like, we.
• 15:12
  We.
• 15:12
  I remember talking to my business partner, and we.
• 15:17
  We were like, hey, how are we gonna get back?
• 15:19
  And everything like that.
• 15:20
  And we started calling on all the customers, and at that point, we offered two services.
• 15:23
  We offered filming and video editing, and none of our customers want us to come film anymore, so we switched over to only doing editing, and we started calling all these customers that we had worked with.
• 15:33
  We're like, hey, you know, we know you need to get through Covet.
• 15:36
  We do, too.
• 15:37
  So let's do some edits for you based on the content we shot for you.
• 15:41
  And the company was still small at this time.
• 15:42
  It was just five people, right?
• 15:44
  Like, it was me, Zach, and a couple creatives.
• 15:48
  And we ended up getting a bunch of those clients to sign back on in 2020.
• 15:52
  We had our best year ever.
• 15:53
  We started productizing the service, and that became a key inflection point for us.
• 15:59
  Like, right around there was when we started to, like, make things more formalized and productized.
• 16:04
  And then over those next five years or six years, bringing us to today, that's when things started to really take off.
• 16:11
  Was.
• 16:12
  Was.
• 16:12
  We had that, like, nice spike right before COVID And then things came crashing down.
• 16:16
  You know, we had another moment where things came crashing down again slightly after Covet.
• 16:20
  I could tell you guys that story too.
• 16:21
  And then we.
• 16:22
  We have been on a, on a growth tear ever since after that.
• 16:26
  Okay, yeah, we'll get into that other story in a second.
• 16:29
  But so let me just understand this and, and help the audience.
• 16:31
  So you're, you're growing nicely.
• 16:33
  All of a sudden, Covid hits and because your, your business is basically going to customers and filming, filming on site, then all of a sudden when everyone's locked down, everyone cancels, and you basically lose 90% of your revenue,
• 16:47
  like instantly.
• 16:48
  Yeah, yeah, 90% of the revenue was lost overnight.
• 16:51
  We were working with a lot of hospitality clients too at the time.
• 16:53
  Like think hotels and events and stuff like that.
• 16:57
  So that, that didn't help the case a bit.
• 17:00
  Um, but, you know, eventually we, we, we found a way to call ourselves back and figured that it would just take dub.
• 17:07
  Double the effort to, to get the same result we'd been getting over the years and put that back in and got back to.
• 17:13
  Back to normal.
• 17:15
  So when that hit.
• 17:16
  Right when that happens, right, because no, and let's go back to that time.
• 17:20
  No one really knew what was going on.
• 17:22
  It was scary.
• 17:23
  A lot of people were getting laid off, losing jobs.
• 17:26
  You didn't know school was canceled.
• 17:28
  Everything was just so weird.
• 17:30
  So when that.
• 17:31
  Ha.
• 17:31
  And you'd been building this business for five years, right, and had all these customers that you worked so hard to build, and then all of a sudden, when you just lose all that revenue overnight, what did you feel
• 17:41
  inside?
• 17:43
  It was one of those moments.
• 17:44
  It's one of those moments that was, you know, who, who are you when you're looking in the mirror, right?
• 17:50
  Like, are you someone that's gonna.
• 17:52
  Gonna quit and roll over?
• 17:54
  Or am I going to be someone that's going to take charge of this and make the best of it?
• 17:59
  So it was one of those defining moments for me that I sort of realized that I am able to endure that pain that I didn't think I could endure when I was first deciding whether or not to get
• 18:13
  a job right after college or go on the entrepreneurship path.
• 18:16
  So it was one of those moments where I was just like, okay, I think I have what it takes to get through these hard times.
• 18:21
  This is not going to be the last time we have a hard time.
• 18:23
  Right?
• 18:23
  Like over long enough period of time and running a business, you're going to have other hard moments.
• 18:27
  But it was one of those moments where I, I just sort of dug my heels in and, and, and made it happen.
• 18:33
  Okay, all right.
• 18:34
  And let's talk about productizing the, the service so you, you couldn't do on site filming at that point.
• 18:40
  So otherwise you could do video editing so you could do that remote.
• 18:43
  And then how, like, can you talk about specifically how you productized it and what that did for the company?
• 18:51
  We really looked at what our customers wanted, and we came to a subscription service that a nice chunk of them would buy into.
• 18:59
  And at the time, it was like, an interesting transition because a lot of them didn't necessarily want to buy into what we were doing, but we were able to get new customers that would sign on.
• 19:09
  So essentially it was like, you know, we figured out, like, what are.
• 19:14
  You know, what was a button that you could click and buy a video.
• 19:17
  That was.
• 19:17
  Our goal was to simplify the whole process.
• 19:19
  We didn't want there to be an elongated sales process.
• 19:21
  We wanted to be able to sell an exact thing to an exact customer archetype.
• 19:25
  And we put together a website for it.
• 19:27
  We put together the offer for it.
• 19:29
  We went to some of our existing customers and a couple of them bought in.
• 19:32
  So we're like, okay, there's some, like, there's some product market fit there.
• 19:36
  And then we started selling it more broadly and started bringing on more customers that we didn't know yet.
• 19:42
  So really it was about coming up with.
• 19:46
  Coming up with a productization roadmap that allowed us to take something that was messy and make it something clean.
• 19:54
  Okay, all right.
• 19:56
  And then ultimately, so 2020, even though you had that scare early on, ends up being your best year, and you really have some phenomenal growth thereafter.
• 20:05
  Now let's.
• 20:06
  What was that.
• 20:06
  That next.
• 20:08
  That next scare that you're alluding to earlier?
• 20:12
  Yeah, so around the same time, during that Covid period, we had a vendor that we had worked with for a while.
• 20:17
  And this vendor we represented, you know, say 80% of their business, and they represented one of our largest cost structures.
• 20:28
  So we approached them to.
• 20:29
  To do a joint venture, do a partnership, and we ended up bringing them in on our fold and investing money into growing the business.
• 20:37
  And we get to send over the final investment check with this company.
• 20:42
  And the company said to us, we don't want to do business with you anymore.
• 20:46
  We're done.
• 20:47
  And they held all the labor, all the.
• 20:49
  All the.
• 20:50
  Effectively all of the.
• 20:51
  Our ability to manufacture our product was held by them.
• 20:55
  And so effectively all the customers that we had really couldn't operate anymore.
• 21:01
  So it was a moment where we almost lost everything again, right?
• 21:04
  Like, we just had that Covid hit.
• 21:05
  And I remember just after that moment hit, like, feeling so defeated because we had just gone through that Covid.
• 21:09
  You know, this was just before our kind of epiphany into productizing went.
• 21:15
  And I remember just sitting on a.
• 21:17
  Sitting on the park bench again with my business partner and just being like, hey, like, what are we gonna do here?
• 21:21
  Like, how are we gonna get back on our feet and survive this.
• 21:25
  This second hit to the business?
• 21:27
  Like, we had enough cash to get us through a couple months, but it, like, wasn't enough to survive really that long.
• 21:33
  And we.
• 21:34
  We really just looked at each other and we're like, okay, we're just gonna get up again and really show ourselves what we're made of to put the company back together again.
• 21:43
  Okay, so what.
• 21:45
  Was there a reason that relationship went south?
• 21:47
  And.
• 21:47
  And did they ultimately, like, could you not service all your accounts that you'd built up?
• 21:53
  We.
• 21:54
  We basically picked the wrong person, right?
• 21:56
  Like, at the end of the day, you can't do good business with a bad person.
• 22:00
  And we picked a bad person, at least a bad person for us.
• 22:03
  So when she did this to us, right.
• 22:06
  When she did this to us, it.
• 22:08
  It ultimately was a really big blow to the business.
• 22:12
  And we weren't able to service it because we weren't able to get and build the infrastructure fast enough because they had the infrastructure to service these clients, and they held a lot of the client relationships.
• 22:23
  So really we were in a.
• 22:24
  In a position where, you know, the clients had an immediate need for stuff, and they weren't going to wait for us to rebuild things.
• 22:30
  They were just going to go with the solution that worked for them all along.
• 22:34
  Okay, all right.
• 22:36
  So you have that second.
• 22:40
  That second crisis.
• 22:41
  You realize, okay, we're going to just power through it and figure it out what happens next.
• 22:48
  So that at that point, we're.
• 22:49
  We're well along the productization journey.
• 22:51
  You know, we start.
• 22:52
  We start building our.
• 22:54
  Building our productization model and start building, like, the infrastructure, right?
• 22:59
  Like, I really look at it like a factory model, right?
• 23:02
  You know, you can give us video footage in, and we could spit you out a finalized product in the end.
• 23:07
  So we really went through the process of continual improvement to remove strengths, constraints from the business, to remove bottlenecks from the business, to remove any issues that were coming up over and over again to perform, stack the product
• 23:19
  that we were putting out.
• 23:20
  In the end, we built some tech inside the business to allow us to scale a little bit better without needing as many people.
• 23:27
  And all of that kind of came together and allowed us to grow a little bit on, you know, boundlessly.
• 23:34
  So ultimately, like that, that process of getting back took about a year, two years to get a customer base in place.
• 23:42
  You know, I would say at the two year mark we maybe had 10, 11, 12 people, something around there.
• 23:47
  Things were starting to hum along.
• 23:48
  We're profitable again.
• 23:49
  Things are, things are coming back.
• 23:51
  And you know, at that point it was, it, it has been steady.
• 23:55
  It was steady growth.
• 23:56
  Right.
• 23:56
  Like, and, and we're, we're really starting to, to grow the business and have customers that like us, have customers that come back to us every month.
• 24:04
  And, and, and we really start to have a real business at that point in time.
• 24:08
  Okay, wow.
• 24:09
  And so to hear you, because again, right in the beginning you said you, you started this company 11 years ago, now you're over 90 employees.
• 24:17
  But again, hearing the whole journey, I mean, you went through a couple times where, I mean, it would have been really easy to give up and a lot of people wouldn't have made it through.
• 24:27
  You know, just even having them resolve to deal with some of those blows to the business, but then to, to overcome it, look where you're at now, you know, is incredible testament to your, your resilience and just your,
• 24:38
  your grit for sure.
• 24:40
  I appreciate that.
• 24:42
  So, I mean, let me just ask you, looking back on it now, especially for someone that after the previous business said, you know, I'm not sure I want to go through this pain again.
• 24:50
  Right.
• 24:51
  And then hearing, hearing the journey with this company now, what's been the best part of this, this whole process for you?
• 24:58
  The, the person you become through the journey of figuring it out is the best is, is the best thing.
• 25:05
  There's, there's no better.
• 25:07
  There's no self help book you can read.
• 25:09
  There's no therapy session you can go to.
• 25:12
  There's no guru you can approach that will teach you, that will teach you the skills that are gained through going through something hard.
• 25:22
  Because it really shows you a mirror back to you of who you are.
• 25:26
  And if you're introspective enough and you lower down your ego, it'll show you where you need to grow.
• 25:30
  So what I've gotten out of going through all this is the man that I am today and the man that looks back at me when I'm looking in the mirror.
• 25:39
  And that person that I look at still has things that I want to grow in and still has things that I want to improve.
• 25:46
  But it's ultimately like it.
• 25:48
  Ultimately, the person I was at 21 couldn't handle the pressure of today, but the person from the me in 10 years, you know, will look back at the me today and be like, wow, that person can't handle what
• 26:01
  I am putting on my back today.
• 26:02
  So, you know, it's always like an evolution.
• 26:04
  And I think the best thing you get out.
• 26:06
  Get out of the whole thing is just a resilient person on the other side of it.
• 26:10
  Okay, well said.
• 26:12
  All right.
• 26:12
  And David, if people want to learn more about your company and your product offerings and and get in touch, what's the best way people can find you online?
• 26:21
  Best place to find me is on Instagram.
• 26:23
  My Instagram is at David Fyman.
• 26:25
  And actually for your audience as a gift, I have a guide on how to hire a video editor that doesn't suck.
• 26:31
  We've hired hundreds over the years, about 20 pages.
• 26:34
  It's like a little ebook.
• 26:35
  So if you reach out to me with Dave G.
• 26:39
  Guide, I'd happy to gift your audience that.
• 26:42
  That guide.
• 26:43
  Okay.
• 26:44
  All right.
• 26:44
  Love it.
• 26:44
  We will link all that in the show.
• 26:45
  Notes for everyone.
• 26:47
  All right, well, David, thank you so much for taking the time to be here and sharing all this incredible wisdom from your journey with our listeners.
• 26:53
  We greatly appreciate it.
• 26:55
  Thanks so much, Dave.