Latest / Military Broadcast Radio | MBR Talk / Oscar Mike Radio - 505 - Greg Potapenko

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Oscar Mike Radio - 505 - Greg Potapenko · Military Broadcast Radio | MBR Talk

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Irene, I say again. Irene.
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The brain. To perfect for the body.
3:04
Am I under arrest? He results an innocent.
3:07
Man. In front of his wife and baby
3:09
groom. Do you remember any of that?
3:12
Does the defendant have any priors?
3:14
Resisting arrest, DUI, assault? Hey, my client has been awarded
3:20
a Purple Heart and a bronze star medal for his combat service.
3:23
I'm. Ordering you to undergo a. 60
3:24
day outpatient rehabilitation program.
3:27
Good luck. No, I'm not doing that.
3:32
Do you know what the VA S put me through?
3:33
If you have a brain in your head, you're going to listen to
3:35
me right now. Because the next time you try to
3:37
provoke a lethal response from law enforcement, you might not
3:39
have an Angel sitting on your shoulder.
3:41
The courts think that you're going to fix me.
3:43
I. Hate to disappoint you, but I
3:45
can't fix you. That's your job, not mine.
3:48
Did you know that your father got out?
3:50
He's a dangerous man, Calvin. Be careful.
3:53
We came back and they spat on us at the airport.
3:57
No home calling parade. No celebrations.
4:00
You can't pretend like you have any idea what it's like to be in
4:03
combat. No, but what I do know is this
4:07
field of work that I've dedicated my life to has helped
4:10
a lot of people when you got back.
4:12
Something was different. It wasn't that you'd changed,
4:17
you'd been replaced. You lose your morality when you
4:22
go to war, and the hard part is coming back to a civilian
4:25
society that doesn't have any idea what's going on in your
4:28
head. It's hard to believe.
4:31
My enemy is the man. I used to.
4:35
Be I bet you wonder where's my tribe?
4:38
And I ain't talking about no friendship neither.
4:40
I'm talking about brotherhood. What is it that you truly want,
4:47
Calvin? I just want to wake up in the
4:49
morning and feel something. My pain is relative, son.
4:55
Sometimes we got to fall apart to find ourselves all over
4:59
again. You were willing to give your
5:06
life for your country, now maybe you can try living for it.
5:16
What are you feeding this guy? Look like that What?
5:18
Do you want I did 4 tours of The Cheesecake Factory, OK.
5:24
Little spicy, little spicy. The movie, music, news,
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6:38
What does the life after service look like?
6:41
Kicking back, Taking it easy. We believe it looks a little
6:46
different. It looks like leading for all
6:49
veterans, helping shape policies to make certain they get the
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benefits they've earned, and ensuring every veteran's voice
6:56
is heard. It looks like advancing to meet
7:00
today's veterans where they are, lifting them up and
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strengthening the bond that unites us.
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It looks like rolling up our sleeves, serving those in need,
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and cleaning up our communities to make them better for
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everyone. Because a veteran's mission
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never truly ends, and neither does ours.
7:24
Thevfwstillleadingstilladvancingstillservinggetinvolved@stillserving.org. Hello and welcome to OSC
7:43
Micradio. My name is Travis, Marine Corps
7:45
veteran and your host OSC Micrios Co produced Assistant
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One Productions. What's your podcast doing?
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I want to thank my sponsors TNT, Pin Company, Outright dot AI and
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Magazine and Fight Camp. Be your strongest combination.
8:05
Speaking of combinations, I'm sitting there, I'm in military
8:10
Creator Con Arlington, TX in April and I'm doing my thing,
8:14
thinking might do. And Mar a Lago hands me this
8:18
this package that says tactical snacks.
8:22
I'm like, well, what is this? Let's try this out and open them
8:25
up. And I was addicted.
8:29
Not too sweet, not too gummy. I mean, they were just right,
8:34
like I was Goldilocks. And so I got a chance to meet
8:39
the, the, the, the founder of technical snacks, Greg
8:41
Padapenko, who's with me right now.
8:44
He's going to talk to me about his service in the military,
8:46
military creator con, his business ventures, all that.
8:49
Greg, welcome to the show. I'm so happy to have you here.
8:53
Hi, Travis. Thank you for the invitation and
8:56
I'm glad to reconnect. Well, I guess three months
9:00
after, yeah, the military creator con show, I'm glad we
9:04
were able to set it up. Absolutely, absolutely.
9:07
It was a great time and you know, thank you for your
9:09
support. What do you think about Military
9:11
Queer Con while we're on the subject?
9:14
I felt like it was an event that, you know, just learning a
9:19
little bit about the back story. We started as a meet up during
9:23
like a bigger influencer event that wasn't I guess military
9:27
connected. And now it's standing on its own
9:30
2 feet and it's got its own, you know, audience.
9:34
So I think it was pretty well put together for like, the
9:38
first, like, big boy pants event that they were able to put on.
9:43
And I hear they're growing for next year in a, you know, bigger
9:47
and better location. So yeah, I always love to see
9:51
veteran related events gain momentum and bring people
9:56
together because that's what it's all about.
9:59
Absolutely. Ladies and gentlemen, Canada
10:04
does have a very storied history in, you know, World War One,
10:09
World War 2 and other conflicts. And so it's always surprising
10:13
people think, well, Canada served like, yeah, they actually
10:16
did a lot. By the way, Greg, what did you
10:21
do in the Canadian Army and how did you come to join the
10:24
Canadian military? So yeah, I've served in the
10:29
Canadian Army as a reservist in the Reserve Force since 2000
10:35
until 2023. So I did the 23 years and the
10:39
reserves start as a private and retired as a Warrant Officer.
10:44
So, you know, kind of rose through the ranks through how
10:50
did I join those through a high school program.
10:52
We had a kind of Co-op program in in the high school where you
10:56
could basically get some school credits and serve in the
11:03
military. And I think they were selling it
11:05
as a, as a more of a summer term thing, which I think didn't
11:10
produce good quality candidates because it was kind of like a
11:13
I'll do this summer and I'm out type of person.
11:17
So I applied through that program.
11:20
I actually didn't get the school Co-op.
11:21
I ended up being contacted a year after actually, after I
11:26
graduated high school already. But I still went in and I stayed
11:31
on throughout my time in university because it was
11:36
basically guaranteed employment throughout the year and all the
11:40
summers when you do all the courses and stuff and then
11:43
stayed on after and next thing you know it's been 23 years so.
11:49
What did you do or what you're doing in the in the Canadian
11:51
military? Yeah, so I was in the infantry
11:55
unit called the 48 colanders of Canada and basically just a
11:59
Light Infantry unit. We did all the Light Infantry
12:03
shit, so do it, you know? Do you want to expand more or?
12:11
No, that, that, that's fine. That's fine.
12:13
I would be interested. Canada is a big place.
12:16
Which province or state in Canada where where you from or
12:19
do you serve out of, you know, because I, I'm right below
12:24
Montreal or or Quebec. Excuse me.
12:26
And when I go to northern Vermont or New Hampshire or
12:30
Maine, you know, about 50 miles before the Canadian border, all
12:34
of a sudden I see French, you know, signs and French and, and
12:37
people speaking French in the other day when I was in, you
12:42
know, last month when I was in Vermont, I was a mile from the
12:44
Canadian border. And, you know, Canadians would
12:47
come over and, you know, go to this place to, to, to hang out
12:50
for the weekend. And it was just like one big
12:51
happy family. So I'm always curious because,
12:54
you know, that's a very different experience than
12:55
someone say, in Ottawa or, you know, Vancouver.
12:59
Yeah, I'm actually, I'm based in Toronto, so this is in Ontario.
13:02
It's the English speaking part. I do enjoy going to Quebec and
13:05
also I I am on the epic military pass with the Vale resort.
13:12
So that actually calls for an annual trip to Vermont because
13:16
there's some properties there that take the military pass and
13:21
it's extended to the allied militaries, the birds, the
13:24
Canadians, the Australians as well, which is like a great deal
13:28
for anybody who's into skiing or snowboarding, by the way.
13:31
But yeah, I'm, I'm an English speaking part and the unit was
13:35
based in downtown Toronto. So I got a rich history founded
13:39
by Scottish community here 125 years ago, so.
13:46
All right. Last couple of questions about
13:47
Toronto Maple Leafs. I mean, I'm not a huge fan of
13:54
the local teams, but you know, did they do exist, the Leafs,
13:58
the the Jays and the Raptors, so.
14:01
And the Argonauts the the CFL team.
14:03
That's right there. And we just hosted the the World
14:05
Cup too, and Canada did OK. It was a good time.
14:10
It's a good time. So again, ladies and gentlemen,
14:13
I'm a set the stage. I'm working registration booth
14:16
at Military Creator Con in Arlington, TX.
14:19
And we're seeing all the VIPs come through and you know,
14:24
there's a box of little green Baggies, you know, like you get
14:28
out of the vending machine or from a gas station just like
14:33
that. And it said tactical snacks.
14:38
And I'm like, OK, you know, I've heard of tactical sunglasses,
14:41
tactical pens, tactical this tactical toilet paper, but not
14:44
tactical snacks. And I tried them and, you know,
14:50
the first impression was they they were they weren't too
14:54
sweet. Greg, It, it didn't taste like
14:57
candy. It was also very like rewarding
15:01
to get through the bag. And then I'm like, OK, I got to
15:04
get more of this stuff. So of all the things that
15:07
veterans can get into, it always amazes me different things that
15:10
veterans do get into and work on.
15:14
What led you to say, you know what?
15:16
We need some like better snacks for us to eat when we're at
15:21
being active. What?
15:22
What caused that? Well, it's actually a
15:26
combination of factors, but it's a great question.
15:30
I'm glad you asked it. So you probably remember when
15:35
you're in the military and you're going through like a
15:40
boring or difficult or sucky situation and you know, usually
15:44
you can't really relax or go have a cigarette if you're a
15:47
smoker or whatever. But you're it's raining, you're
15:50
wet, you're tired, you're, you know, haven't slept in a while.
15:54
And then you just miserable. Somebody breaks out a bag of
15:58
sour worms or something and passes it around and then
16:00
immediately kind of elevates the situation and boosts morale a
16:04
little bit. So that was kind of something
16:06
that I had in the back of my mind when I also thought, look,
16:15
there's always better for you snacks being made.
16:19
There's the whole like low sugar movement going on.
16:23
People are trying to eat more healthy in general, but no
16:27
brands really speaking to like our community.
16:30
There's nothing really being made that's super healthy and
16:36
the, you know, that's talking to, to the veterans, the first
16:41
responders. And I thought, why not?
16:43
And I went to the, to Reddit and I looked at some threads about
16:49
like, what is the best range snack?
16:51
What's the best field snack? What's the best patrol snack
16:53
from like cops and, and the military and consistently in the
17:00
top three or five. It was, you know, gummy candy.
17:03
It was like other things like jerky and, and nuts and protein
17:06
bars. And then I figured, well, you
17:08
know, I'm a pretty healthy eater.
17:11
I'm pretty fit. And, you know, I want to do
17:14
something to benefit, you know, the community that gave me so
17:18
much. And I want to kind of give back.
17:20
So that's why I thought it would be a good product to make.
17:25
And the name was kind of a bit of a joke, but it was also
17:28
almost like a Reddit meme, tactical snacks.
17:31
But I felt like, you know, why be so serious?
17:34
You know, I don't want to be this like very kind of serious,
17:39
you know, I'm a healthy food brand that's more just, you
17:42
know, like a little bit of self irony, a little bit of, you
17:46
know, the military humor type stuff where we always make fun
17:50
of each other just to kind of also boost morale.
17:53
So that's, that's why I, I wanted to, to go into making
17:57
something healthy and fun for the community.
18:01
That's the thing I got it it some of these snacks, you get
18:03
them into the healthy snacks like REI and those other stores
18:06
and it's very serious, you know, you know, know, know this, know
18:10
that, but all good for you. And it's like, well, there's no
18:14
fun there. These snacks didn't take
18:17
themselves too seriously. And it was fun like a little
18:20
kid, you know, and I don't know about you, you know, Greg, but
18:24
you know, in the Marine Corps, you know, we throw hands over
18:27
the Tootsie Rolls in the Mr. ES. I mean, you know, we, we, we go,
18:31
we go heavy for those. So it, it's a very important
18:34
part of the military experience. But I thought they were fun.
18:39
No, thank you. That's exactly the point.
18:41
And yeah, we've had the same experience with our, they're
18:44
called Imps that have Skittles or M&M's or some other like
18:49
brands in there and trade them. And when we work with the
18:54
American horses with swap Mr. ES for IM PS and just kind of see,
19:00
you know, what's everybody got the Tabasco sauce.
19:04
One of the. One of the hottest commodities,
19:07
they're passing that around, but we didn't have those at the
19:10
time. But no, that's exactly like it's
19:12
a relatable thing that even though like we're kind of, you
19:16
know, on each respective side of the border, we can immediately
19:20
connect over that fact, right. So like, you bring a story and I
19:23
immediately resonate with it. And I think that's, that's the
19:26
intent of like having some sort of a community feeling built
19:30
around the brand. So it's not just a product that
19:33
has only, you know, 3 grams of sugar and 80% less calories than
19:38
the leading brand and doesn't use any, you know, corn syrup or
19:42
stuff that you cannot pronounce or red dye #5 you know what I
19:45
mean? So that's that's why.
19:50
No, I did look at the, the, the, the calorie count.
19:52
I'm like, OK, because I, I mean, I can't make a confession, Greg,
19:57
you know, I was to bag #5 before I looked at the actual wrapper
20:01
because I, I, I got with Julie and Ashley a couple others and I
20:05
and I snab there, I took their bags out of their, their, their,
20:10
their gift bags. I figured they wouldn't miss
20:12
them that much. But I look at the, I look at
20:14
the, the nutrition information, I'm like, wow, there's not that
20:17
much sugar and there's not that many calories.
20:20
And then? OK, there's not a lot of like
20:23
the I'm used to saying like it was Skittles you, you know, it's
20:27
all these dyes and other things and it's really like basic.
20:32
And I'm curious, you know, how did you formulate?
20:35
I mean, you talked about it, right, but you really had to
20:37
work at the formula, right? So it tastes good and also, you
20:40
know, shipping and be good. And I'm that had to take some
20:44
some work to do. It did takes quite a bit of like
20:50
work finding the right partner. Like I'm not a food scientist,
20:53
I'm not a flavourist, don't really have much experience in
20:58
the food industry. Like I have experience in
21:02
e-commerce and digital marketing and we can maybe dive into that.
21:06
But yeah, essentially it was finding the right partners who
21:10
had the experience, you know, building similar products for,
21:13
you know, all the brands and working with them.
21:15
Just kind of all finding the requirements and saying what I
21:21
want to see, what I don't want to see.
21:22
It was more on like, what I don't want to see in there, Like
21:24
I have my criteria was like simple, short list of
21:27
ingredients, nothing that people cannot pronounce and kind of
21:33
like low sugar, low lower calorie and amazing flavor and
21:38
taste. And that was really kind of the
21:39
left and right arc that I've given them.
21:41
And they were able to kind of knock it out of the park because
21:44
they were already experienced and making, you know, these
21:48
types of products. And then similar process I
21:54
repeated when we launched our protein energy cookie, which you
21:58
haven't sampled at the show, which is a actually we released
22:04
it March of this year. So it was very new at the time
22:07
on the show. But yeah, it was a similar
22:11
process. And it also took almost almost a
22:13
year of trial and error. Just like we make a sample, try
22:17
it. No, like we got to make it less
22:19
moist. No, we got to make it more dry.
22:20
And now we got to make it, you know, less sweet and this, this
22:25
and that. All in all, you know, 910
22:27
probably a dozen rounds. And it's obviously time and
22:31
money. But I wanted something that I
22:34
would feel good staying behind. And also the people would try
22:38
once and then want to buy again, not just try once and then
22:41
forget about it. Well, one of the things you did
22:44
at military Clear Con was talk about, you know, how this came
22:48
together and how you marketed it.
22:50
And then as I'm, you know, preparing to do the show and
22:53
getting to know you, I realize there's a whole different side
22:55
of you with H hour, you know, marketing H hour ventures.
23:00
So it's like, OK, he must have used a lot of what he, you know,
23:04
did with H hour to market and and move technical snacks
23:08
forward. So, yeah, can you, can you tell
23:10
me about HR marketing, how that all works?
23:14
Yeah. So essentially when I was in my
23:19
20s, I kind of graduated from university.
23:23
I was still very active in the military.
23:27
And basically, you know, I was about to start a family and I
23:31
realized in a life in Toronto isn't really cheap.
23:34
It's not a, an expensive city and kind of starting to look
23:39
around and obviously trying to look at it, see how can I
23:42
elevate my income. So looking for jobs.
23:44
I was studying, you know, to at least I was trying to go into
23:51
the finance world deeper because I had a finance degree and I was
23:54
trying to go down to, we call it Bay St.
23:58
It's basically the Canadian Wall Street and I stumbled into like
24:07
a business opportunity on the Internet and affiliate
24:10
marketing. And basically because I had
24:13
experience building websites for fun as a teenager, I figured I
24:18
could give this online marketing thing a goal.
24:21
So around 2007 I started dabbling in online marketing,
24:28
experimenting with Google Ads and building websites.
24:31
And after initial period where like I lost a bunch of money and
24:36
like I didn't know what I was doing, I found some success.
24:38
And slowly like you know, like 2008 I made like $10,000 extra
24:43
on the side. And then next year I made like
24:44
50 grand. And then couple of years later,
24:48
I started making like a substantial amount of money just
24:52
doing this online marketing, basically advertising other
24:57
people's products for a Commission or for a, for a
25:00
retainer. And eventually 2011, I left my
25:04
civilian job. I still stayed on in the
25:06
military because, you know, I was, I, you know, I loved it at
25:10
this point. It wasn't, it wasn't anymore
25:12
for, for extra income or anything.
25:14
It was literally just, you know, service and mission and, and the
25:19
guys that I was serving with and I started building my
25:23
performance marketing agency and I did it for call it HR
25:26
marketing, which was kind of an interesting name.
25:32
But I did it for over over a decade, basically acting as a
25:38
marketer for various brands. And I worked with some small
25:41
brands and even it's like a Fortune 500 brands, mostly in
25:45
lead generation space in the financial and home services
25:50
space, as well as in software apps and like APC software.
25:57
Then that kind of started to decline as Shopify and
26:02
e-commerce and Amazon started to kind of become more and more
26:05
well known. So I slowly started pivoting
26:07
into e-commerce and trying to straddle the two worlds of.
26:13
Running. This lead generation affiliate
26:16
agency and trying to launch my own brand.
26:18
So the first like small success that I had in e-commerce was
26:22
actually a firearms maintenance brand.
26:25
It was probably around 2018-2019 and kind of took off.
26:32
We started like, you know, exhibiting a SHOT Show in Vegas
26:37
and features. Yeah, I got featured in Guns and
26:40
Ammo magazine organically and started making connections with
26:45
gun influencers and 2A Youtubers and veteran influencers
26:50
obviously through through the firearm space.
26:52
So that business also kind of failed during COVID.
26:56
But because I had this audience built up of like competitive
27:01
shooters and veterans and cops and stuff, I thought like, I
27:06
need to continue to do something with it.
27:08
And I try to launch a supplement brand, which also sort of didn't
27:13
take off. And eventually that led me to
27:16
snacks because through the supplements brand, I learned
27:20
more about contract manufacturing, about gummies,
27:22
and that led me to the gummy candy.
27:24
So like, that's how like the whole puzzle came together.
27:29
So it was a series. Of of, you know, there's there's
27:33
an expression that, you know, progress isn't linear, but it
27:36
sounds like, you know, over time, you refine your
27:39
techniques, you find your processes and you started really
27:43
building the kind of, you know, systems you wanted, you know,
27:47
looking at HR ventures. You do a lot with.
27:52
Mergers and acquisitions and, and buying businesses and people
27:56
don't think about buying businesses like you just go to a
27:59
place and buy a business and you own the business.
28:02
You know what got you interested in that?
28:04
Because that's that's not something that a lot of people
28:06
really look towards. Yeah, so.
28:10
That's kind of goes back to that series of ups and downs.
28:14
So like when I had the affiliate business, it was primarily an
28:18
upward trajectory with some dips probably from like 20/20/10 to
28:25
like 2021. And then it started rapidly
28:30
declining. Like I basically had a had a big
28:32
client leave in 2021 and then a bunch of others kind of
28:36
disappeared overnight and it kind of the revenue went off a
28:40
Cliff. And in that period of turmoil, I
28:44
was like frantically trying to like steer the ship and find
28:48
solid ground, so to speak. So like, OK, what should I do
28:51
when I launch this product, Test that idea, partner up with this
28:57
person. And a lot of things kind of
29:00
failed. And the acquisitions came on my
29:04
radar also through a friend who was struggling in his business.
29:07
And he basically said, well, we're struggling trying to build
29:12
something from zero to 1. Why don't we well team up and
29:18
take this course about business building.
29:21
So like essentially sort of business buying essentially
29:25
that's when it was really 2022-2023 when he's like
29:30
acquisition, entrepreneur, influencer started to pop up and
29:35
essentially like I bought a bug, he bought a bug.
29:37
Then you see somebody on Instagram and you watch a
29:39
YouTube video. One story shortly, I went
29:42
through like a, a boot camp actually.
29:46
There was like several military members in the cohort.
29:49
There was like one guy from the SEAL teams, one from the Air
29:52
Force, I think one from the Marine Corps and myself, I think
29:56
it was 4. And yeah, like I was seriously
30:00
looking for a business to acquire for about 18 months.
30:06
So I didn't, I didn't end up acquiring any, any meaningful
30:11
businesses. So like I did acquire a small
30:12
Amazon brand, which was kind of the precursor to the supplement
30:15
brand that I described earlier. It was kind of like a small
30:20
website off of Flipa, like very simple, very small transaction.
30:24
But I didn't go through the steps of like doing due
30:27
diligence and negotiating the deal.
30:28
But it wasn't like a major acquisition.
30:30
I did look for a major one and ended up starting Tactical
30:34
Snacks in the process of of that.
30:38
There's there's a little a little back story, but I guess.
30:43
I guess my immediate question would be when when you look at a
30:47
business now, based on what you've known, you haven't done
30:50
this for a year or two, you, you have like a good 15 to 20 years
30:54
of working in business. In your mind, what's a good
30:59
business to acquire? What are you looking for?
31:03
So again, take it with a grain of salt because outside of that
31:07
one small Amazon acquisition, I haven't really done one per
31:11
side. I've looked at a lot of deals,
31:14
I've submitted bids for several and none of them basically I was
31:19
all bid. What I was looking for was
31:24
probably more of what I don't want rather than what I want
31:27
because he kind of after working for a few years in certain
31:31
industries, you kind of know where the skeletons are.
31:33
And I was looking at business in those industries like
31:38
e-commerce, marketing agency software.
31:40
So like I kind of knew what I didn't want rather than what I
31:43
want to do. Some criteria on size and
31:46
revenue and and customer concentration and all that.
31:49
This like usually after you read 1 to these books or courses like
31:56
there's criteria about like what's the location?
31:58
Is it location independent or is it remote?
32:01
What's the business size and what is the industry?
32:05
Those are typically like the big three.
32:07
And then there's like others about like you don't want a lot
32:10
of customer concentration. You may want some sort of
32:13
recurring or reoccurring revenue as opposed to A1 time project.
32:18
Again, not always, but as a rule of thumb, that's what people
32:21
want. But then as time passes,
32:25
everybody kind of starts to refine their criteria based on
32:28
what they learn. So like it's, it's sort of
32:32
individual to your skills, your appetite for risk and also you
32:37
like your financial. Capabilities.
32:41
One, one thing that I realized is that kind of the bigger the
32:44
business, the better the business.
32:46
It typically tends to be. Smaller businesses tend to be
32:50
more like it's really a job where the founder is the
32:54
business, So that's probably very hard to step into as
33:00
opposed to somewhere where their systems and teams in place.
33:03
But they'll also probably like more more expensive, more
33:11
capital intensive deal. But yeah, like we can probably
33:15
go on for for a while and down that, you know, rabbit hole.
33:18
But essentially, yeah, like I can't say that I saw something
33:22
that it was like, that's it, this is the one.
33:25
There's always something like, So like it is never going to be
33:28
perfect. There's also going to be
33:29
trade-offs, like maybe the location is going to be farther
33:31
away or maybe the price is going to be a little bit higher, or
33:35
maybe the there's going to be more work because the team isn't
33:39
fully staffed. So yeah, like essentially
33:44
everybody will have their own set of criteria for what they're
33:47
looking for, and then they will refine it with time.
33:51
So at this stage in your, your career in your life, you know,
33:56
you're retired from the military, you're a veteran and
33:59
you're, you're working in these areas.
34:01
Would you say that, you know, technical snacks and that kind
34:05
of thing is taking more of your, your time and you're putting
34:08
more energy to it? Or is HH our adventures, you
34:12
know there? Is it a balancing act or is one
34:16
more focused than the other? So.
34:19
I'm, I'm glad you brought it up because for years up until 2024,
34:24
I had the proverbial entrepreneurial shiny object
34:28
syndrome, the balancing act. I always had like two or three
34:31
irons in the fire. And this is really the first
34:34
time in my life that I focused on one thing.
34:39
Like a lot of business advice goes is like focus on one thing,
34:44
you know, focus, focus on one course of action until success.
34:49
Like that's one interpretation of of the word as an acronym.
34:53
But essentially, yeah, like this is really for the first time
34:55
that I'm trying this, like just go all in and one thing and like
35:00
give it a solid 100% for a long enough period of time to see it
35:05
through or to the point where you can say, you know what, I
35:08
gave it my all and it didn't work.
35:10
So yeah. But up until 20/24, it was like,
35:13
I'm doing this, this, this and that.
35:15
I'm running an agency and I'm running e-commerce.
35:17
And I also want to launch a course and I want to, you know,
35:21
speak at events and list goes on and on and on.
35:24
And that same thing was when I was studying finance, working a
35:30
corporate job and also serving in the military, climbing
35:34
through the ranks. So.
35:35
So not so. Sorry, less is more kind of
35:39
mindset, but hey, you know what, we're going to, you know, pair
35:43
away the the unimportant things to focus on the main objective.
35:50
Yeah. Like essentially the the idea is
35:52
that if you are 100% committed to one thing, you will
35:57
outperform somebody who's like attention is split.
36:02
It's like if you're, if you have a platoon of infantry soldiers
36:07
trying to take the objective of, you know, a platoon size
36:11
objective, like it's going to be unwise to try to take two
36:15
objectives that each is a platoon size objective with just
36:18
one platoon, right? It's just, it's going to be very
36:20
hard, almost impossible unless you're like super lucky.
36:22
Well, well, Greg, I'm, I'm. Thinking of, I'm thinking of
36:25
Napoleon right now and right, Napoleon's claim to fame was he,
36:30
he would figure out where the weak point was and where he
36:33
wanted to attack. And he put all his troops at the
36:36
weak point and send them all there.
36:38
And to your point, more times than not, they were able to, you
36:43
know, affect the outcome they wanted.
36:46
So you know, you're, you're, you're on something there.
36:50
Yeah, like there there's definitely that the military
36:53
analogy or for like the non military folks, what they
36:56
usually say is when you have a magnifying glass, you can burn a
37:00
hole through a piece of paper. But if you just bring the piece
37:02
of paper out in the sun and I'll just get warm and nothing would
37:05
happen. So same idea again, like see me
37:08
on the other side, talk to me in a year like I'll I'll tell you
37:11
how how it went. But it definitely helps calm
37:17
down the mental chatter, if you will.
37:19
So like on on the mental health side, obviously, like especially
37:22
when things aren't going well and you're trying to like catch
37:25
every lifeline. Like for a while I was, I
37:27
basically, you know, I'm, I'm a pretty capable individual,
37:32
right? But like, I'm not afraid of hard
37:35
things. But it actually became kind of
37:36
hard and to a point where like, OK, you know, let me, let me try
37:40
to like do this the right way and, you know, calm down and
37:47
focus on one thing. So yes, that that's that's the
37:49
current situation where I'm pursuing one one thing for for a
37:54
period of time and giving a mile.
37:57
So I'm with Greg from tactical Snacks.
37:59
I met him at military career con.
38:02
What? So military career con is next
38:05
May. Maybe you'll come, maybe you
38:07
won't. I don't know.
38:07
Right now I'm not putting on the spot.
38:09
But let's just say you know, you have a year from now, give or
38:13
take a few months. What's the plan or or state you
38:17
want to be in with Tactical Snacks over the next next year?
38:22
That's another thing that I, it was sort of my, my new year
38:26
resolution for 2026 is to try to detach from outcome based goals
38:33
to process based goals. What I mean by that is that
38:35
like, if you set a goal of like I'm going to make $1,000,000 and
38:39
then you make 900,000 or maybe you make nothing, you're going
38:44
to be disappointed. But if you, your goal is to
38:46
like, OK, I'm going to do the following things in order to
38:50
make $1,000,000 and at the end of the year, you said I did all
38:53
those things and I did them well, then you're going to be
38:58
less disappointed even if you made nothing.
39:00
So from from that perspective, I think I'm not really putting any
39:05
sort of like monetary goals or like I want to be in 1000 retail
39:10
stores or I want to have, you know, 5 million run rate or I
39:14
want to sell a million snacks. I have I have a plan of, you
39:19
know, I'm going to work on my Amazon presence.
39:25
I'm going to work on getting onto TikTok shop.
39:29
I'm going to open AUS Corporation in order to like
39:35
basically facilitate doing business in, in the United
39:38
States and it opens a lot of doors having the actual like
39:41
American corporation and work on, on the retail presence.
39:47
We are already in the talks with, I don't know if I'm at
39:51
liberty to disclose, but basically we're kind of getting
39:54
on board with the AFIS, the Army.
39:58
The excess. There's nothing on paper so far
40:02
in terms of a purchase order, but at least we're getting into
40:04
the system so that the buyer can find us if and when they decide
40:09
to, you know? Put put us in some doors, but
40:12
that's something that's I'm really excited about for 2027.
40:18
So those are probably the big three initiatives is Amazon
40:22
retail and TikTok shop. OK, so.
40:25
Hey, we're, we're we're you know, if I see you in Fort Worth
40:30
next May, I hope to carve out some time to talk with you in
40:34
the meantime, you know, and look, folks like, you know, if
40:38
you're hungry, attack your hunger with tactical snacks.
40:41
I'm, I'm going to work it up for you, Greg, A little nice little
40:43
voice over clip for it. How can people discover tactical
40:48
snacks and get connected with you and your offerings?
40:51
Because, yeah, there's the cookies and other things now.
40:54
Yeah, so. If you want to follow the brand
40:58
on socials you just look for tactical snacks.
41:02
I think the tactical snacks handle was taken by, I'm not
41:07
sure who, but so it's tactical snacks with an X in the end
41:11
almost. So I think against Instagram,
41:13
TikTok, YouTube and X, it's Tactical snacks X.
41:16
And then I think Facebook is the only place where it's tactical
41:20
snacks without the X. If you want to try the products,
41:25
itstactical-snacks.com once again, because tactical snacks
41:30
is one word was taken and they wanted quite a good chunk of
41:34
change for it. Or on Amazon.com if you're a
41:38
Prime member and wants some faster shipping, but you can
41:42
snack some sweet deals and some free swag on on the website.
41:47
There's some morale patches and T-shirts and stuff like that
41:49
where you buy buy bundles and you get those as gifts.
41:55
So hopefully in 2027 you'll find us at the Army bases and Air
42:00
Force bases in the exchanges, but we'll see about that.
42:04
Well, I. Will have the links to all those
42:06
in the OSMAC video show post Greg.
42:08
And again, I'm a fan. I'm a huge fan.
42:10
I mean, like I said, I got I, I, I was, you know, norfing through
42:15
Julie's and Alicia's bags to get their snacks.
42:19
And I'm like, I got to get more of this and find out more.
42:21
And then there is a clip on his Instagram where I'm like,
42:25
tactical snacks attack your hunger, something like that,
42:28
which was really funny. And I appreciate you, you know,
42:30
playing along, being a good sport.
42:32
But, you know, again, this just to me magnifies the story of how
42:36
veterans can get into different things and user military
42:40
experience to find, you know, new ways to engage other
42:43
veterans and other people. So big fan, big fan and can't
42:46
wait to see what you do in the future.
42:49
Thank you. And also thank you for, you
42:51
know, voicing being the voice of of the veteran community and
42:57
bringing people together, making sure to remind them that they're
43:01
not alone. And there's somebody who's in
43:06
their corner, who's got their back, who's got their sex.
43:08
And we are helping each other out.
43:11
We're connecting and elevating these events.
43:14
So yeah, definitely the military creator con is on my radar for
43:19
for next year if the schedule allows.
43:24
But yeah, thank you for hosting me here today.
43:28
Absolutely. Absolutely.
43:29
Ladies and gentlemen, Greg Potipenko, Canadian veteran
43:32
business owner and again his new venture Tactical Snacks.
43:37
I have all the links. Great, thank you very much.
43:39
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