Latest / Real Estate for Real Life / Episode 22 • From Selling a Business to Building a New One: The Money, Mindset & Risks Behind Entrepreneurship with Mark Condon

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Episode 22 • From Selling a Business to Building a New One: The Money, Mindset & Risks Behind Entrepreneurship with Mark Condon · Real Estate for Real Life

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  On Real Estate for Real Life podcasts, we sit down with
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  standout business leaders to unpack what's actually working.
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  How they scale, lead teams, win clients and build businesses
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  that last. We're your hosts.
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  I'm Courtney Gauchman. And I'm Ryan Wilson, thanks for
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  tuning in. We are here with Mark Condon,
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  serial entrepreneur and Shark Tank finalist.
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  Thanks so much for joining us, Mark.
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  Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
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  We're pumped to have you. Yeah, we're pumped to have you.
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  I met Mark. I was introduced to Mark by an
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  old friend many, many years ago when he was switching careers,
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  getting out of the snack franchise that you owned.
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  Yep. And going on to massive, massive
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  things, which we're excited to chat with you about.
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  So yeah, thanks again for coming on.
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  Why don't you start us off? Tell us about your
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  entrepreneurial story. Yeah, I mean, it started when I
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  was 21. I just got laid off from
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  Jordan's Furniture. Just like 4 years ago.
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  Yeah, I wish. Perfect 15 four.
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  Wait, what were you doing at Jordan's?
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  I worked in the warehouse, like I just built like help build the
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  furniture in Taunton that people would get delivered to their
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  homes. And then my father worked in, he
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  used to work for Frito Lay and then he went out on his own and
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  owned a franchise for at the time was Snyder's Pretzels.
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  There was a route available. I literally had nothing.
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  I was 21, didn't really know what I was going to do.
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  He's like, this is available. Like like I'll put it in my
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  name. You can just pay me week or
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  monthly, however we got paid and you can just run it.
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  So I took that and I started that process.
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  That was brutal. I mean, I was 21.
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  Go out all night Fridays and Saturdays and like, but stores
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  need to be filled. So you own a territory of
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  supermarkets that you delivered chips to or pretzels at the
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  time. And stores need to be filled
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  before people get in, right? So like, I'm 21, I'm going out.
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  I'm in Boston, Quincy and I'm rolling into my house at like
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  2:00 in the morning, right? And I still live at my parents
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  house and my dad like his alarm is going off.
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  Like as I'm getting home, he's like you just getting in.
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  I'm like, I'm I'm good, I'm good to go.
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  You're driving, I'm ready to deliver.
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  I'm ready to deliver. And I didn't know what I was
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  doing. So anyways, like I'm walking
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  around in the supermarkets like helping them put like chips on
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  the shelf. Like this kind of sucks.
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  Like this is not like this is not what I want to do.
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  But I really again, like I was kind of lost at the time.
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  So I went for it and I did it and it actually turned out, I
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  think it's kind of what shaped me into like the next 15 years.
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  Bringing us to today is like had to get up on a certain time,
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  things had to get done. And I very much turned into a
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  morning person after that whole thing started.
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  And I owned about 6 towns at the time.
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  And then what I would do is I would kind of like build up the
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  territories with the sales and then sell a piece off, build it
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  up and sell a piece off. So ultimately I was doing the
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  same amount of business like 7 or 8 years later, but in like 2
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  towns versus 6, right? Because I'm getting paid
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  Commission. So I'm getting paid the same
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  amount of money, working a lot less hours wise.
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  And then Fast forward, probably, yeah, I was 12 years in.
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  I didn't want, I didn't want to do this the rest of my life.
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  You're kind of capped as to how much you can make because the
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  stores only allow you to fill up so much shelves or like
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  displays. And so I didn't really want to
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  do it forever. I was 32 at the time and so I
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  was selling half the business and then a buddy of mine who I
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  met through the local gym, Steve, shout out to Steve
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  Johnson legend. Yeah.
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  Steve, I reached out to him initially for like, financial
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  advice, Like, hey, I'm selling half the business.
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  I'm going to have X. Like I literally knew nothing at
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  the time. Like I didn't even know what a
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  Roth IRA was. I was 32.
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  Like, that's embarrassing to say now, especially being in the
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  finance space. But I didn't know.
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  I didn't know what I didn't know.
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  So Steve kind of explained everything to me, right?
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  Right after I chatted with him about it, I got my real estate
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  license. So I was like, hey, like, I'm
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  interested in the real estate space.
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  And that's how he connected me to Ryan.
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  He had a great meeting like 10 years ago, 12 years ago.
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  It was, I think it was 9 1/2 years.
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  Ago right across the hall. Yeah, he didn't.
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  I'm like, if this guy gets into real estate, he's going to crush
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  it. He gets into finance, he's going
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  to crush it. Yeah, or I puppy what you'll
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  talk about. We'll talk about I puppy so, but
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  yeah. And then so in short, I got
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  recruited by another gentleman at, at CFG like 2 weeks later
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  and just went into the financial services industry, but
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  Commonwealth Financial Group, Commonwealth Financial Group,
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  CFG. Yeah.
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  So awesome. Yeah.
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  So that's, that's how I got into that space.
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  That's how Ryan and I've gotten connected.
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  And yeah, like we've been connected ever since.
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  And we always find ways to like stay connected, whether it's do
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  referrals, business podcasts, like you're on my podcast, on
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  your podcast. I love it.
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  Yeah, Mark did 102 episodes of a podcast.
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  I think it was Boston Best. Right Boston's best yeah, it's
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  still live. We, I don't I don't think we've
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  recorded in anything in probably yeah, it's been 4 years.
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  I stopped the podcast to do. Triple digits podcast.
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  That's a lot of work, yeah. What's that?
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  I said. Once you had kids.
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  That too. That's takes up a lot of.
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  Time So tell us about So you're a serial entrepreneur?
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  Yeah, You know, you started when you were 21 with your dad in the
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  truck deliveries, owning that franchise, selling portions of
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  it, buying different portions, maximizing value, all that sort
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  of things like that you're doing on your own.
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  No one taught you how to do that.
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  You're figuring it out, which is which is pretty exciting.
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  Fast forward to a couple years ago, 2022 I believe, when you
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  launched I puppy, which is a really cool thing.
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  Tell us about that. What gave you that idea?
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  How do you how do you land on that?
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  Yeah, so if we back up a second, like the podcast is essentially
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  what got me to start ipuppy. So I was flirting with the idea
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  of starting Boston's best podcast, really just a network
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  with local business owners. Like whether directly or
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  indirectly getting business, you know, businesses is just, you
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  know, I want to network, network with business owners in general
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  and then promote them in the, you know, in their space.
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  And I didn't really know what to do.
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  Then COVID hit and I was like, screw it.
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  Like, I mean, just like grab a mic and a zoom meeting and just
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  like talk to people and just like promote them.
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  Episode 85 S you're almost two years into it.
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  I met a company called 52 launch out of Framingham.
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  And what they do in short is they help you bring your like
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  they call it like the napkin to reality.
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  So like your product idea, they help you bring it to life.
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  So like they are basically like a small incubator accelerator.
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  You hire them, they have a whole team of engineers marketing,
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  they have relationships with manufacturers.
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  So you essentially they're the third party, but you leverage
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  them to create what it is you're trying to create.
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  It could be as simple as a Wan game or like a tech product like
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  I puppy with an app and such. So afterwards we were chatting
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  and I was like, hey, like I've always had these ideas, but you
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  know, I've always loved just the idea of Shark Tank bringing a
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  product to life. And then like we have some
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  ideas. Like I had some ideas and then
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  we were going back and forth because they were only, I lived
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  in Framingham at the time, so they were only 5 minutes down
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  the street. I went to their office and we
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  going back and forth and we landed on basically like a dog
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  training button, if you will, but more not just like a button
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  where that makes a noise, but like a button that's got an app
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  has a two way video camera. It's got an audio motion
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  detection. Like it's a basically like a
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  communication system for the dog and the the only way it's the
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  only button out there where the dog can communicate to their
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  owner versus like you having a camera in the house and you
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  talking to your dog through the camera in the.
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  Audio or whatever. Right.
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  So the initial reason we created it was so I had a senior dog,
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  chocolate lab Champ, passed four months into the whole process.
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  He passed at 14, but like he had to be on another floor of the
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  house. This is COVID.
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  I was in the basement working fully remote and his back legs
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  were so weak. He couldn't like get up.
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  He couldn't like tell me when he had to go to the bathroom.
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  So I wanted a way to watch him and a way for him to notify me
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  if he had to go to the bathroom. But not like those annoying
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  bells by the door that people get, but like a modern day
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  version of that. So that's where I puppy spawned
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  from. It's like a dog training
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  product, kind of like a not like a gimmick gimmicky product or a
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  gadget, but just like a modern day version of those annoying
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  bells by the door. And then about a year into
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  actually having our first mold, somebody reached, I don't know
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  how they found us. Like we weren't even promoting
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  anything, promoting anything at the time, But somebody reached
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  out to us and said, hey, like, my mom is in a wheelchair.
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  She had both of her legs amputated.
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  She has a service dog. Can I use this for an emergency?
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  I was like, it was kind of like the light bulb moment for that,
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  where like this could now be like a medical alert button.
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  Yeah, like if someone's having a seizure and they're like therapy
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  dog can let family know or something like that.
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  Right. So if you think about it, I have
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  champ past. I have no dog.
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  Yeah, I have no dog training experience.
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  I have even less experience in the service dog space.
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  And somehow I have like a medical alert device for service
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  dogs and people with disabilities.
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  And like I had, I had no idea what I was doing.
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  So we really pivoted to folk like it all does everything I
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  already talked about. But one key feature about I
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  puppies, you can invite up to three people to receive the
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  notification. So one thing I realized as we
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  went into the service dog space is in a lot of individuals have
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  service dogs and they're if they pass out through or have a
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  seizure, their dogs will get a medicine, their dogs will get
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  them water, but they have no way if they're home alone, they have
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  no way to reach their emergency contacts like that one feature
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  alone is like a lifeline for individuals.
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  So that just kind of like exploded and what we really
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  started to focus on. I'd say like 90% of the
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  customers use it for the service dog space, and the other 10% are
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  probably potty training focused. It can be used for each.
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  But if you think about kind of the mechanics of it, the
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  everyday pet owner, the potty training aspect, it's a nice to
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  have. Yeah.
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  The everyday person's probably going to get lazy, say my dog's
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  an idiot, they can't do this yet.
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  Like you look at the service dog space, those dogs can do 100
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  different things. Yeah, they know exactly what to
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  do as soon as they see a button, like they hit it, and like the
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  need for these people to get their dogs to press the button
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  is a lot more important than the everyday person that might.
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  Just end up. Using it as a camera, you know
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  what I mean, which is fine to even do whatever they want with
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  it, But so it was a lower barrier of entry to focus on the
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  service dog space and get initial customers there.
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  So that's kind of where we've focused.
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  But that's I puppy. It's cool like it's been, I
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  stopped the podcast to focus on I puppy.
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  We had a four month old at the time.
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  We now have a 4 1/2 year old and a 2 1/2 year old, almost five
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  and three. And yeah, we're four years into
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  it and we're really just like, we're really like the last like
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  a year and a half. We've really started selling the
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  product. We received the inventory.
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  The whole process of getting a, a product manufactured is just
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  that's a whole pain in the ass. Like that's, that's a whole lot
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  of back and forth. That gets a lot, but yeah,
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  that's, that's, that's that's. That's incredible, and I know
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  you had a journey on Shark Tank as well.
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  Tell us about that. That has to be a cool
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  experience. Yeah, it was an awesome
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  experience. I just saw some casting and it
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  was in Philly and I was like, I can go to Philly.
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  Like, why not? Like, what do I got to lose?
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  So I took it. It was a day trip.
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  I flew out at like 6-7 AM, whatever the flight time was
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  there. And then there's me.
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  And I mean, I think there were over 700 people that interviewed
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  that morning. We were there all day.
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  I had like a 9:00 PM flight home and yeah, so they take you in,
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  they take your name, they take, they give you a badge and
• 11:19
  essentially sit everybody down like Kevin O'Leary spoke, a
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  couple other people spoke and they're like, alright, you're
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  all giving me a ticket. Practice your pitch.
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  You get 30 seconds when your number's called, your number's
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  called and I had to wait like another like 4 hours.
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  So you see like people like this was at a casino in Philly, you
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  just people see people like sitting there in the sports
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  book, like having a drink wagering and like practicing
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  their pitch like all at the same time.
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  Yeah. Yeah.
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  And then finally got on and I pitched this gentleman who oddly
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  enough is from Watertown. OK, my in laws are like grew up
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  in Watertown. He in short, he knew my
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  father-in-law and we had like a couple other like random
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  connections. So I was like, all right, well,
• 12:03
  that's definitely going to help whether he likes the product or
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  not. Like that might help me just.
• 12:06
  On Peru as a finalist. And then like, all right, you'll
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  hear from us in a couple weeks. If you don't hear anything, you
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  didn't move on. So like, don't stress it.
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  Got a call back. I remember we had, I forget
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  where we were coming from, but we were pulling into the
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  driveway of our Framingham house and like I get a phone call and
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  you see 313. Oh my God, that's Cali.
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  I'm like, let me, I got to pick this.
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  I look at my wife and I was like, I got to pick this up.
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  He's like, hey, it's so and so and I picked it up.
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  He's like Congrats, like you're on to the next the next stage.
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  Like we love I puppy. We think it's a really cool
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  idea. You're on to the next stage.
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  Holy. So that was cool.
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  And then you, we were just moving into, this was right
• 12:45
  before we moved into our Medway. Yeah, all this was happening.
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  You were selling your Framingham house, buying another one.
• 12:50
  Yeah, so 'cause I remember I had to fill out three applications
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  you had to fill out. They all took like an hour to
• 12:56
  fill out all these applications and then you had to submit a
• 13:00
  video, a couple send a few other things I remember like creating
• 13:03
  the video in the basement of our new Medway home that we like
• 13:06
  just moved into and sent that along.
• 13:09
  And a few weeks later I remember I was pulling up to an event in
• 13:14
  Jersey to promote. It's like a like pet event, some
• 13:19
  pet conference. And like as I'm pulling up to
• 13:21
  the the Convention Center, I get a call and this woman, she's
• 13:25
  like, sorry you didn't make it. Have a good day.
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  Like that's it. Like you're not going to be like
• 13:30
  anything. Yeah, she's like, there's
• 13:32
  there's another pet product. It's the same, it's the same
• 13:35
  thing. Like, what do you mean is
• 13:36
  there's nothing out there? Like yeah, there's literally
• 13:38
  nothing out there that's similar to I, Puppy.
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  What was the product didn't make it?
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  She didn't even. She didn't.
• 13:42
  She's like she's. Inferior.
• 13:44
  Yeah, we know she, I mean she was just like cold blooded like
• 13:47
  she had no which is fine. Like gotta make phone calls.
• 13:51
  I mean nothing to her. You know, I'm just like, I'm
• 13:53
  pulling up to a pet conference like 2 days, like literally at
• 13:55
  the conventions in a parking lot and like.
• 13:56
  Crying that sucks. Like that was like.
• 13:59
  Disheartening going into like, this event.
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  Yeah, of course. So excited, but it was a cool
• 14:03
  experience. Like you know, it was a great,
• 14:05
  it was a great experience. Was a lot of fun.
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  Next time there's one local I'll probably enter again, New
• 14:09
  Jersey, New York. Like whatever it may be like
• 14:11
  I'll, I'll probably do it. Again, can you enter as many
• 14:13
  times? Yeah, there's one person that
• 14:14
  was there for the 7th time. Yeah.
• 14:16
  Like you can, you can apply online, but the in persons where
• 14:19
  you actually have a better shot because they get, I mean they
• 14:21
  get thousands a week of applications like they might get
• 14:23
  to you in four years, you know what I mean?
• 14:25
  So the in persons like kind of the way to go, yeah.
• 14:28
  So the the product helps dogs alert you when they got to go
• 14:32
  outside. It helps service dogs alert in
• 14:36
  emergency. Yeah.
• 14:37
  There's a two way camera Yeah and it's a small device, right.
• 14:40
  It's like 5 inches by 5 inches Yeah.
• 14:42
  If I've got a little pop print on it, yeah, they step on the on
• 14:44
  the the big button, yeah. And then now I'm assuming that
• 14:47
  activates camera and yeah, text messages and so on.
• 14:50
  Yeah. So you'll get a push
• 14:51
  notification sent to your phone like any other notification on
• 14:54
  any other app that you have on your phone.
• 14:55
  Notification goes off when you open up.
• 14:57
  You swipe it open, you open up the notification, it takes you
• 14:59
  to the camera right at the front of the unit and it looks like
• 15:01
  you're getting like a video call from your dog.
• 15:03
  If the right, if your dog's still in the camera view, which
• 15:05
  it's like 140°, like it's a pretty wide camera.
• 15:09
  So you, yeah, you open the notification, you're getting a
• 15:11
  video call from your dog. Like, yeah, this is cool.
• 15:13
  It's awesome. It's really cool.
• 15:14
  Like, it's awesome. It's it's awesome.
• 15:16
  Yeah. It's a really cool product.
• 15:17
  So how are you selling it now? What's your what's your method?
• 15:19
  Is it online? Is it, I know I see it promoted
• 15:21
  a lot on Instagram. You do a great job.
• 15:23
  But yeah, or online in general. But what are you?
• 15:25
  What's your main source of getting getting clients?
• 15:28
  We're on. We have our website, ipuppy.com.
• 15:31
  We're on Chewy, we're on Amazon. So I got on Chewy last year at a
• 15:34
  pet convention in Vegas. I met the head of the tech pet
• 15:37
  tech department, like they're out of Chewy's out of Boston.
• 15:39
  So I, she saw the product came over to me.
• 15:41
  Yeah, yeah, they're right out of Boston.
• 15:42
  She came over to me. She's like, we we need this on,
• 15:44
  on Chewy. It's like, great.
• 15:45
  So got on Chewy like within like a month.
• 15:49
  And so those are the three main channels that we're currently
• 15:51
  selling it. There's a couple other like dog
• 15:53
  training sites, but yeah, we're just promoting on social media
• 15:58
  and I'm really trying to get in partnerships with a lot of
• 16:00
  service dog organizations. Yeah, right.
• 16:02
  So there's a few of them like New York vet dogs in particular,
• 16:05
  like they have like follow up emails when people are getting a
• 16:07
  service dog, like go buy an ipuppy.
• 16:09
  Like here's our affiliate code. Here's our.
• 16:11
  Discount code, yeah. So like I give organizations
• 16:14
  basically an option like customers can get $20 off their
• 16:18
  ipuppy and I'll give you a $20 kick back to your organization
• 16:21
  as like a donation or whatever, or like you can just pass it
• 16:23
  forward to the next person, right?
• 16:24
  So they just everybody's incentivized to just to just
• 16:27
  share, to share and pass it along.
• 16:30
  And I just really, I met this one really cool guy, BJ Ganem
• 16:33
  from a company called SD former veteran.
• 16:36
  He's a ton of veterans with PTSD.
• 16:38
  I was going to say like the run to home base I've been a big
• 16:41
  part of my ex-husband served 2 tours in Iraq.
• 16:43
  And so I saw the damages that like happens to the guys when
• 16:47
  they come back and we didn't have a service dog at the time
• 16:50
  and we had a pit bull and she was totally his dog.
• 16:53
  And the comfort that she brought him, like when we got divorced,
• 16:57
  it was amicable. He wrote in the divorce decree
• 17:00
  that he got the dog and it she was totally his.
• 17:03
  So I was like, all about it. But like, like that would just
• 17:05
  be like such a wonderful program to like collaborate with.
• 17:08
  Yeah. And you realize like it's really
• 17:11
  incredible all the all the different service dog
• 17:13
  organizations like, and just organizations in general, like
• 17:16
  SD, like what they do, they all have the different aspects.
• 17:18
  They're all have focus on different niches, whether it's
• 17:20
  like PTSD, POTS, seizures, just other mobility issues, right?
• 17:25
  Like there's so many reasons that people just need a product
• 17:28
  like that. They already have a dog.
• 17:29
  And so he's been like BJ from SD has been really cool to meet.
• 17:34
  He's getting involved in his program.
• 17:35
  So the goal is just to try to get it.
• 17:36
  Essentially, this is the training program.
• 17:39
  Like here's an eye puppy, Here's our discount code.
• 17:41
  Like go get an eye puppy. Your dog will train, is trained
• 17:43
  to do this, what you need for, you know, whatever you need the
• 17:47
  dog for. So yeah, it's.
• 17:49
  So that's kind of how we're getting out there now and just
• 17:52
  trying to grow it as much as possible like it's.
• 17:54
  Is it just you or is it is it I mean?
• 17:56
  90% of it's me, like we have, like I have an individual, she
• 18:01
  has, she's a service dog trainer and she has a condition called
• 18:04
  POTS and she helps me create social media content.
• 18:07
  She's really great at it 'cause like I can't look, I don't, I
• 18:10
  don't even have a dog like so I can't even like create just
• 18:12
  casually create content like let alone like for what we're trying
• 18:16
  to use it for like like I'm, I'm not.
• 18:17
  So she's been great. She creates a lot of content for
• 18:20
  me. And I have another individual
• 18:21
  named Katie who's actually based out of the UK, she helps me with
• 18:25
  like planning as far as like growing the, the company and
• 18:28
  such. So we're coming up with other
• 18:31
  like bundled kits, like digital training kits for people with
• 18:33
  like specific disabilities. So like use this for, you know,
• 18:37
  what you have going on with your dog.
• 18:39
  So just other ideas on how to grow it.
• 18:41
  So it's those two mainly. And then and then me, I would
• 18:44
  love to have somebody help me with the just like the emails
• 18:47
  and such, you know, like the little ticky tack stuff when you
• 18:50
  get on Amazon and chewy like all those little stuff takes up so
• 18:53
  much time. Yeah.
• 18:54
  Not to mention this is like supposed was supposed to be a
• 18:57
  side gig that I grossly underestimated the cost to bring
• 19:01
  a tech product to life with manufacturing.
• 19:03
  Yeah. And the time that it takes to
• 19:06
  actually like grow this to what it really could be.
• 19:09
  You know, I have a full time job and I, you know, as well.
• 19:12
  And then two little kids like, yeah.
• 19:14
  So like I definitely need the help.
• 19:16
  So I was trying to slowly grow it.
• 19:17
  So like any surplus at the end of each month can just go to
• 19:20
  additional help or like promoting it through ads and
• 19:22
  stuff like that, yeah. Because you get up at what, 430
• 19:26
  you said and start your day for I puppy. 430 would be sleeping
• 19:29
  in. Usually and my Rev cycle is the
• 19:33
  2nd. Half of the day we can do dinner
• 19:34
  after this. Yeah, usually people don't think
• 19:38
  I'm crazy, so usually the first alarm goes off at like 2:45.
• 19:41
  I'm up at like 3:00 to 3:15 depending on how long it took me
• 19:45
  to put one of the two kids to bed the night prior.
• 19:48
  And then usually I probably call from like 3:30 to 6:00 each
• 19:51
  morning, like 2 1/2 hours. Then breakfast, kids wake up,
• 19:55
  school drop off. And then I start the day of the
• 19:59
  other like the other full time job that actually pays all the
• 20:01
  bills right now, but it's the only time to do it.
• 20:04
  Like especially like like I said, like I had a four month
• 20:06
  old at the time where my wife was doing a lot of the work.
• 20:09
  You know, now two kids that like there's dinner, there's bedtime,
• 20:12
  there's bath. And like, you know, dinner is
• 20:14
  like a 45 minute process with like kids these days, like.
• 20:17
  I asked another like half hour. Like everything after like 4:30,
• 20:21
  my day's done. Yeah, You know what I mean.
• 20:22
  From like 4:30 till 7:30. No work on any business yeah,
• 20:25
  gets done, you know, and I sold the chip business officially in
• 20:29
  January or February of this year.
• 20:30
  So like that was finally I went from like 3:00 to 2:00.
• 20:32
  That was a nice like little break.
• 20:35
  But yeah, so I'm, I just, I think the chip business got me
• 20:38
  used to getting up early that now like I, I, you have to get,
• 20:44
  you have to get up early to get things done.
• 20:45
  Like I just can't do anything later in the day.
• 20:48
  Nobody's awake, nobody's like clogging up my inbox with emails
• 20:52
  that you have to respond to but just take up.
• 20:54
  There's no ROI on some of those, some of that work.
• 20:56
  So yeah, I just think getting up early is just kind of, yeah, I,
• 21:00
  I enjoy it. Like, I don't mind.
• 21:01
  So what time do you go to bed? Like 7:30.
• 21:03
  No, it's when I was single, Yeah, I would.
• 21:07
  I would go to bed at like 7:30, get up at like 330.
• 21:10
  I'd get like 8 hours of sleep delivering chips.
• 21:12
  Now it's hopefully 9 or 930 and I'm up probably.
• 21:16
  I probably got between 5:00 and 6:00 a night.
• 21:18
  Yeah, Yeah, that's good. Yeah, yeah.
• 21:21
  To get you get into RAM. It's not healthy, though.
• 21:23
  It's not. It's not healthy.
• 21:24
  Though how many espresso shots do you have in a day?
• 21:28
  I have usually 2 coffees and quasi friend that I know he owns
• 21:33
  this company called wake up water.
• 21:34
  It's like basically flavored like caffeine sticks so good.
• 21:37
  So usually like 2 coffees in one of those a day, basically like 3
• 21:40
  coffee jewels a day. Yeah, shout out to Tyler.
• 21:43
  Gonna have to look into that. It's it's really good.
• 21:45
  Yeah, probably as you drink it too fast.
• 21:47
  So what's the next? What's the next step for a
• 21:51
  puppy? What's your next move as an
• 21:53
  entrepreneur? How do you take?
• 21:54
  How do you take it to the next level?
• 21:55
  Yeah, right now. So the pros and cons, I think
• 21:57
  it's really great product. It's it's a premium product.
• 22:00
  So it's not cheap. You know, it's like 129 to 149
• 22:03
  depending on, you know, time of year.
• 22:06
  I mean, that's a bargain. Any dog owners out there?
• 22:08
  Yeah. If you you know, that's one
• 22:10
  dinner. Yeah.
• 22:11
  Agreed. I mean, agreed.
• 22:12
  What do you what do you like a nice dinner or something for
• 22:15
  your dog? I mean, buy the product.
• 22:17
  Agreed. So the next step with it is as
• 22:20
  far as growing, it is creating these like these digital
• 22:23
  training, like kits for specific niches that people use their
• 22:26
  dogs for and like bundling them together.
• 22:28
  You know, 'cause let's be honest, like it's a lot of
• 22:31
  upfront capital for a physical product, digital training kits,
• 22:35
  one time upfront time of investment, you know, investment
• 22:38
  of time and cost. And then it's just, it's a
• 22:40
  digital product that you just emailing to people, right?
• 22:42
  So like there's no, there's no costs at the end of the day
• 22:47
  every time we sell one. So like growing that.
• 22:49
  And then what we want to do is essentially become somewhat of a
• 22:53
  like a quasi retailer for other service dog accessories that
• 22:56
  people need, right? So whether it's just harnesses,
• 22:59
  whatever it may be, that's where we can take it.
• 23:03
  There's another company out there.
• 23:05
  I mean, I won't say the name like there, it's the website was
• 23:08
  built like 40 years ago. It looked like picture like
• 23:11
  Craigslist, but like for the assistive dog like product space
• 23:16
  and they do they do a lot of money, a lot of business every
• 23:19
  single year. So want to become like partner
• 23:21
  with them kind of like be like the modern day version of like
• 23:24
  what they've created. So that's that's where I see it
• 23:27
  going. That's what we're focusing on
• 23:29
  through the end of next year. So the next 18 months or so,
• 23:31
  it's. Exciting.
• 23:31
  So since 2022, you've been an entrepreneur for many, many
• 23:35
  years longer than that. But what have you?
• 23:36
  What is like some big lessons you've learned as an
• 23:38
  entrepreneur? What's like your highest and
• 23:40
  what's your lowest? I'd say like if it's my motto
• 23:45
  ever since COVID started and started with the podcast, which
• 23:47
  now seems like it's so easy. Like it's not like scary to do,
• 23:50
  but if it scares you and excites you at the same time, go for it,
• 23:55
  right? Because like if life's just too,
• 23:57
  it's just too boring otherwise, right?
• 23:59
  Like so like if like I puppies scare the hell out of me, but I
• 24:02
  was like, this is this would be really awesome if this works
• 24:04
  out. So I'm like, go for it.
• 24:07
  So we just went for it. So I'd say if it scares you and
• 24:11
  excites you at the same time, go for it.
• 24:14
  With that being said, you know, I'm, I'm 42 now, so half my life
• 24:18
  I have not been W2. So I've been paid Commission or
• 24:21
  whatever, you know, for my entire life.
• 24:24
  We, we say the same thing to buyers when they're buying a
• 24:27
  property. Obviously it's a huge emotional
• 24:29
  thing for, for buyers. Yeah.
• 24:30
  And we tell them, especially usually after a home inspection,
• 24:33
  it's like, hey, listen, if you're excited and nervous,
• 24:36
  awesome. If you're just nervous and
• 24:37
  you're not really excited, you know what, maybe this one isn't
• 24:40
  for you. Yeah, right.
• 24:41
  Yeah. You have like, yeah, especially
• 24:43
  with the home, like we saw, you know, Ashley helped us out.
• 24:45
  Like there were times when we just went to an open house and
• 24:47
  like you were on your way. Like don't bother because like
• 24:49
  you kind of know within 5 minutes if you.
• 24:51
  Yeah, I remember one time at I was in Franklin, like it looked
• 24:54
  great. And it's like, yeah, if.
• 24:56
  It's the right one. Genuinely want to pursue.
• 24:59
  It's like, I don't like that, don't like that.
• 25:01
  That's like 3 things in 5 minutes.
• 25:02
  Like I remember when I was walking out of that Franklin
• 25:05
  home and calling you like, don't don't bother.
• 25:06
  Sure. I'm like, yeah, don't, don't
• 25:07
  bother. We're not going to buy this.
• 25:08
  So yeah. So same sentiment that with with
• 25:12
  that being an entrepreneur, there's a lot of those like, you
• 25:14
  know, when I'm waking up that early in the morning and I'm
• 25:16
  just like handling like these Amazon policy, like
• 25:20
  communication, like all this other stuff that doesn't drive
• 25:23
  revenue, but you don't have anybody else to do it.
• 25:25
  Like those are tough mornings, right?
• 25:27
  Like I just spent like 2 to 3 hours of my life on just like
• 25:30
  nonsense right now. Like that's tough to keep going.
• 25:35
  So you just especially like you just you get lonely at times,
• 25:37
  you know, so but then you get the highest highs where like,
• 25:41
  you know, in the finance where you land a big client, somebody
• 25:43
  finally responds to you after so long or like I got into like I
• 25:46
  got on to Chewy, like that's like a high for like a month,
• 25:48
  you know what I mean? Like that, that was cool.
• 25:50
  So you just got to be able to handle those emotions and then
• 25:52
  not let it dribble over to like the personal side of things,
• 25:55
  right? Like, you know, the wife comes
• 25:57
  home or your kids come home from school.
• 25:58
  Like you just got to be a husband, You got to be a dad at
• 26:00
  that same moment. You can't.
• 26:01
  You got to take the business hat off.
• 26:03
  I, I hear about stories all the time where it's like, all right,
• 26:05
  this person was in the weeds, grinding, trying to bring this
• 26:08
  business to life for five years, 10 years, 15 years.
• 26:11
  And then all of a sudden it's like, you know, kind of like the
• 26:13
  hockey stick and you're grinding, you're grinding,
• 26:15
  you're grinding. And then all of a sudden, you
• 26:17
  know, all the sudden, you know, trajectory.
• 26:18
  And now next thing you know, you have this monster business.
• 26:21
  Right. And that's what people see like
• 26:23
  when you come out like, you can see that.
• 26:24
  They see your success. They.
• 26:25
  See the. Success like that's.
• 26:27
  What people see, they don't, they don't realize that like,
• 26:29
  you know, I, I don't know if it's kids or combo of the
• 26:32
  business, but like, you know, the, the wrinkles on my face now
• 26:35
  are being just in like 40s now, like lack of sleep.
• 26:37
  Like people, people don't realize like everything that
• 26:40
  goes into it, you know, they just see the success.
• 26:42
  And so, yeah, so always help, always try to help your friends
• 26:45
  that are just starting their own thing.
• 26:47
  You know what I mean? Just help them out, whether it's
• 26:49
  just a share on social media that's you don't get to buy
• 26:52
  their product if you don't have a dog, but just help them out.
• 26:55
  It means a lot. People don't realize it, so it's
• 26:57
  awesome. We're all of the generation that
• 26:59
  our parents were like, you have to get a degree, you have to get
• 27:02
  a degree, and you and I went to the same college.
• 27:06
  But you have a really unique story.
• 27:07
  So you've been very successful. You work tirelessly to get
• 27:11
  there, but you only went to school for a semester.
• 27:15
  What are you going to tell your girls when it's time to choose
• 27:19
  what they want to do? Like go to school, do a trade,
• 27:22
  whatever. Heavy question coming from
• 27:24
  Ashley. It's a big one.
• 27:25
  I like that a lot. I mean, I have a lot of thoughts
• 27:27
  on this. I think for the average everyday
• 27:29
  person, college is just wildly overpriced and not worth it.
• 27:32
  I'm just going to come out there and say it like there's no
• 27:34
  reason you need to go to school to learn like a psychology major
• 27:38
  for like 60 grand a year and come out of college like a
• 27:40
  quarter $1,000,000 in debt. It makes no sense to me, right?
• 27:42
  But like there I, I remember So going into the summer between
• 27:48
  senior year and college, I was under the impression I was
• 27:51
  living on campus. My parents, for better or worse,
• 27:54
  either maybe I forgot or just didn't tell me that I was not
• 27:57
  moving, living on campus until like three weeks before school
• 28:01
  started. So now I found myself commuting.
• 28:03
  Now the Bridgewater was only 20 minutes away.
• 28:05
  It also was kind of lame. I lived on campus.
• 28:06
  Yeah. You didn't miss much.
• 28:08
  The only regret I have, I'll say, is not having the on campus
• 28:12
  experience at that point. Yeah, I live with my parents
• 28:15
  until I was 23. Then I bought my house in
• 28:18
  Easton. And like, I don't think if I
• 28:20
  went to college, I would have been able to buy my house in
• 28:22
  Easton at 23. And I don't think anything else
• 28:23
  that followed would have happened as it had happened.
• 28:26
  But I do miss, I do wish I had that one college, that college
• 28:29
  experience, just like meeting new friends, going out, like not
• 28:32
  reporting to anybody. So but yeah, but like, so I end
• 28:36
  up, I was working at Jordan's Furniture at the time, making a
• 28:38
  whopping like $14.00 an hour, I think it was at the time.
• 28:41
  Like that was big money back then.
• 28:43
  And then I found myself like skipping classes to work to pay
• 28:45
  for it. And it's just like, it just
• 28:47
  didn't work. So I had, I remember I had, I
• 28:50
  was a psychology major, which is why I mentioned that and a
• 28:52
  criminal justice major or minor, whatever it was.
• 28:55
  I got 2 CS and like 3 incompletes and I wasn't allowed
• 28:59
  to go back in the spring and like you can reapply or go back
• 29:02
  in the fall. And I just like I just, that's
• 29:04
  just not for me. So I worked at Jordan because it
• 29:07
  was paying the highest money at the time.
• 29:08
  Then a few years later and then I started working in the chip
• 29:11
  business and like I think with that question with my girls,
• 29:14
  like they have a 529, they have a UTMA, like they have multiple
• 29:17
  accounts. So whatever they do, they do.
• 29:20
  I don't AI these days. I have no idea what college is
• 29:23
  going to look like in 10 to 15 years.
• 29:24
  Yeah, I have no idea what that landscape.
• 29:26
  I would love for them to start on their own.
• 29:27
  You know, my 4 year olds are already like on Sundays, like
• 29:30
  daddy like the weekends are too short.
• 29:31
  Like I don't want to go to school.
• 29:32
  I'm like, I don't want to go to work, sweetheart.
• 29:35
  I don't want to go to work. Like if like you're cute, like
• 29:38
  can you sell some I puppies for me?
• 29:39
  Like I'll start you on the business path right now.
• 29:41
  I would love for them to do that.
• 29:43
  Like I think you're going to be a doctor, a dentist or like a
• 29:45
  lawyer. Like, yeah, you need to go to
• 29:47
  those things, right. But like I'd argue vast majority
• 29:50
  of people don't need don't use what they go to college.
• 29:52
  No, I mean I have an exercise Physiology degree, so yeah, does
• 29:56
  not correlate. It got me to where I am now,
• 29:58
  but. Yeah.
• 29:59
  So, you know, there's that. But like just the cost for it.
• 30:01
  Like, these days you can learn a lot without actually having to
• 30:06
  go to college. Like, I figured all this shit
• 30:07
  out myself. Like, yeah, just, you know, just
• 30:10
  do something and figure if it fails I can just do the next
• 30:12
  thing to, I don't know, just figure it.
• 30:14
  Out. Needless to say, you have some
• 30:15
  grit, which I really appreciate. Yeah, again, like, I don't think
• 30:18
  I got that until I started in that chip business.
• 30:19
  So I think that really helped me with all this.
• 30:21
  But yeah, I, I, I don't, I don't know how I feel about College in
• 30:24
  general. Which I think every entrepreneur
• 30:25
  has grit, which is a really hard thing to measure right and
• 30:29
  determine. Like even when we're
• 30:30
  interviewing people, you need that.
• 30:32
  You need to be gritty to be a real estate agent because it's
• 30:34
  just a, it's a sorry, you know, 90% fail rate.
• 30:37
  You know, you mentioned something to switch gears a
• 30:39
  little, which is like the hot topic in all business, which is
• 30:43
  AI. How is that played into your I
• 30:46
  puppy business? A lot so especially when I don't
• 30:50
  have somebody helping me in the website and such like the
• 30:52
  coding, I have no idea what I'm doing Like let's just I
• 30:55
  literally like I didn't build out the initial the first
• 30:58
  version of the website, but like I have updated everything on the
• 31:01
  website through like just ChatGPT.
• 31:04
  But I haven't used clod because I just everything is just stored
• 31:07
  in ChatGPT. And I heard clod's coding is
• 31:10
  great, but I just like asked ChatGPT like how do I create
• 31:13
  this on this website? This is the current code.
• 31:15
  What's the new code that I need to put in there and then it just
• 31:18
  spits it? Out yeah, it's amazing it's.
• 31:20
  Amazing, I just copy and paste. I hit refresh on my.
• 31:23
  Life before. That was.
• 31:24
  That was unbelievable. You're pretty much a coder.
• 31:27
  I'm calling me a coder, so yeah. And then like the marketing
• 31:30
  aspect, you know, creating like the post e-mail, like just all
• 31:33
  the e-mail flows where like people sign up for like the
• 31:36
  giveaway that we have or like a post purchase e-mail flow.
• 31:39
  And just like they help write all of that.
• 31:43
  And you know, you just say reference like this, this, this,
• 31:46
  this and this website and like create XYZ.
• 31:49
  It's just it's been huge like it's been huge as like an
• 31:51
  assistant essentially. And I just started like the new
• 31:54
  new images we have for the product itself as all created
• 31:58
  through ChatGPT, like all that's created with.
• 32:01
  So it's helped a lot with this aspect.
• 32:03
  Like I have so many different sub chats depending on whether I
• 32:06
  use like Clavio or the shop fire, LinkedIn or Amazon or
• 32:09
  Chewy back in like it just somehow knows how to do all of
• 32:12
  this. And I just like keep it all
• 32:13
  separate 'cause I'm just an organizational freak.
• 32:15
  But it's helped dramatically with this.
• 32:18
  Like I dramatically. Yeah, yeah.
• 32:21
  What do you see next level for that?
• 32:23
  Is there any next steps that you're going to integrate into
• 32:25
  your product or? Eventually we need a new app, we
• 32:28
  need to update the app. And I'm flirting with the idea
• 32:32
  of like, like I got a few quotes.
• 32:34
  They're astronomical in comparison to what I actually
• 32:36
  want to pay right now for a new app.
• 32:37
  Given what we are like sales wise, it just doesn't really
• 32:40
  make sense. But I'm like, what if like
• 32:42
  codecs or like, like I think Claude's like Fable 5 or
• 32:46
  whatever it is, like they could probably do a lot of this.
• 32:49
  So I, I just need to like set aside a day and just like start
• 32:53
  doing prompts and like, I wouldn't even know where to go
• 32:55
  to begin. But I guarantee you, like it was
• 32:57
  Google four years ago. Now it's just like Chachi PT or
• 33:00
  Claude. Like I guarantee you, you start
• 33:01
  typing in stuff. It's just going to start telling
• 33:03
  you what to do and you can just kind of get there on your own,
• 33:05
  right? It's going to dedicate the time
• 33:07
  to do it. So I'm like, how cheap could I
• 33:09
  like, if I could, can I just create this new app that I'm
• 33:11
  looking to do like with like AI and such?
• 33:14
  And I think I can, I just gonna dedicate the time to actually,
• 33:16
  yeah, yeah, that's. Cool, you have a lot of free
• 33:18
  time so this should be. Easy.
• 33:20
  I just, I just got about 1:45. Yeah, I just got about 1:40.
• 33:23
  Five. I mean, let's not make excuses.
• 33:24
  Come on, don't. Be lazy.
• 33:28
  Yeah, this is awesome. So we're gonna put I puppy in
• 33:32
  the post so you're gonna be able to purchase it.
• 33:34
  Anyone with a dog, you gotta go check it out.
• 33:37
  Yeah, yeah. I want to touch on before we end
• 33:39
  this is I can, I can talk about this stuff all day long because
• 33:41
  you're an entrepreneur and I just I'm obsessed with that.
• 33:44
  You are a financial advisor. You work for a Commonwealth
• 33:48
  Financial Group is one of the most reputable companies in the
• 33:51
  whole country. We work with a lot of people at
• 33:54
  your at your firm. Tell us a little bit about that
• 33:56
  and kind of why you love doing that and why you love help
• 33:59
  helping people financially and. Yeah, I mean, it all goes back
• 34:02
  to like my buddy, the people personally know Steve, like,
• 34:05
  because the way he explained everything to me, everything to
• 34:07
  me, I was like, that's not scary.
• 34:08
  Like this is how a Roth IRA works.
• 34:09
  This is how like a traditional brokerage account works.
• 34:12
  This is how like, you know, insurance works.
• 34:14
  And it's like, I was 32 and I didn't even know what a Roth IRA
• 34:17
  was. And now I'm in the financial
• 34:19
  services industry and it's like, it's like so basic, right you.
• 34:22
  Dropped a couple names for stuff for your daughters and I'm like,
• 34:26
  I don't know what that is and I'm 41 so I know it's.
• 34:29
  Just set up. But like, yeah, like I care
• 34:32
  because like, I didn't know what that stuff was.
• 34:34
  And I know what it's like to not know and just be scared to talk
• 34:37
  for some reason. Nobody likes talking money.
• 34:39
  Yeah, well, I mean, I'm an open book now, but like, no one likes
• 34:42
  talking well. We were always told you don't
• 34:44
  talk about money, politics and religion, right?
• 34:46
  So, right, I'd still kind of stay away from politics.
• 34:49
  People talk about money out there, everything else.
• 34:51
  I'll talk about like, just ask the question.
• 34:54
  Yeah, just ask somebody that you know and trust.
• 34:57
  They're just, they're not going to sell you anything, you know
• 34:59
  what I mean? Like, they'll just give you
• 35:00
  something that they'll just tell you the truth and you're like,
• 35:02
  all right, like, OK, now I should do XY or Z.
• 35:05
  Yeah, because now I just know how it works.
• 35:06
  Well, I think especially when it comes with like money and
• 35:08
  financial planning, there's like highs and lows for everyone,
• 35:11
  especially entrepreneurs. Like you have years where you
• 35:12
  absolutely kill it and then years that you question
• 35:14
  everything. So it's like you're embarrassed
• 35:17
  to talk about the lows and people only want to talk about
• 35:20
  their highs. But like you saying you're an
• 35:22
  open book now, it's like it makes other people feel
• 35:25
  comfortable to say like hey I need help with this.
• 35:28
  Yeah, I think the vulnerability is actually like an attractive
• 35:31
  quality, right? Like I, I, I've told clients
• 35:33
  like I didn't know what to write the area.
• 35:34
  It was 10 years ago. Like I had no idea.
• 35:37
  Like, so like just start asking. I don't know, Like I think a lot
• 35:40
  of people are probably doing a lot of the right things, but
• 35:43
  they just don't know what it could potentially look like.
• 35:45
  Like, I can't tell you what the market's going to do every year.
• 35:47
  Like it's not going to do 7% or 10% every single year.
• 35:49
  There'll be 20 this year. It's up like 11:50 depending on
• 35:52
  how you doing 15. But like, you know, it was still
• 35:56
  got AI bubble going on bubble, whatever you want to call it.
• 35:59
  You still got Iran, like you still got the midterm elections
• 36:01
  in November. Like there's going to be a lot
• 36:03
  of stuff that's going to happen I think in the next 18 months as
• 36:06
  far as the market performance goes, It doesn't mean you're
• 36:08
  going to crash, but like there's a lot of question marks.
• 36:10
  Somehow the markets, the AI and the chips are propping
• 36:13
  everything up. So I think just ask a question
• 36:16
  and just like just ask somebody that you trust and they're not
• 36:18
  going to try to sell you something.
• 36:19
  If you use them great. Like, but I think that's why I
• 36:23
  care about it is just because you just have no idea what it's
• 36:26
  going to look like. We can build out a bunch of
• 36:27
  different scenarios. The more education you have on
• 36:29
  like this is how this works. This is what it looks like if
• 36:31
  you get like good market returns or what if you retired in 2000?
• 36:36
  That's like the lost decade 2000 O1 O2 crash of elite like you,
• 36:41
  you were, you got nothing in that decade.
• 36:43
  But if you retired in O9, you have a decade straight a
• 36:45
  positive returns like those two people that started with say
• 36:49
  2,000,000 bucks each, like drastically different retirement
• 36:51
  lifestyles, right? Like someone might have to go
• 36:53
  back to work because they didn't have anything set up and they're
• 36:56
  reliant solely on the market volatility that might be taking
• 36:59
  on too much risk or, you know, there's just a lot to it.
• 37:01
  So I think helping people build out a bunch of scenarios.
• 37:04
  Like I've been meeting with the gentleman this afternoon.
• 37:05
  I think I've built out like 12 different scenarios for him and
• 37:07
  his wife at this point cuz he's like, what if this happens?
• 37:09
  What if this happens? Like if this is the worst case
• 37:12
  scenario that we've built out and this is the best case
• 37:14
  scenario, like you're going to end up somewhere in between.
• 37:16
  But like, if this is the worst case scenario and you're good
• 37:18
  with that, like terrible sequence of returns, like super
• 37:21
  high inflation, you got to work till 70.
• 37:24
  And like, you know, there's just, I can go on this topic
• 37:28
  forever. You just like people just don't
• 37:30
  know how what the right question to ask.
• 37:32
  So I think you just got to reach out to them.
• 37:33
  I just, I just care about helping people like whether
• 37:36
  somebody's 25 or like 75, you know, like I have a young guy,
• 37:39
  he's 25, he's like he's putting like 500 months in my Roth IRA.
• 37:42
  Like too much like you got, you got like 2 grand a month of like
• 37:45
  excess like cash flow. Like do it like do it now.
• 37:48
  Because like once the other real bills start to come in, like you
• 37:51
  want to be used to putting 500 bucks a month into that and take
• 37:54
  that away to go for a car payment, you know what I mean?
• 37:56
  So. One thing you mentioned which
• 37:58
  really resonates with us, and this is what we try to do with
• 38:00
  our, our real estate businesses educate, Yeah, like education
• 38:04
  attracts like 100%. We are in sales.
• 38:06
  And frankly, most businesses at the end of the day are sales
• 38:09
  100%. But if you educate the consumer,
• 38:11
  give them their options, put it on the table, they're going to
• 38:14
  understand what's best for them. You're gonna help them get
• 38:16
  there, right. But if you educate them there,
• 38:18
  there's a good chance they're gonna work with.
• 38:20
  You that's all it is like people work with people they trust.
• 38:22
  So, like, stop trying to sell somebody something and just
• 38:25
  like, educate. And it would be like, all right.
• 38:28
  Like he didn't even try to sell me.
• 38:29
  He just told me like how this works.
• 38:31
  Like, I'm probably just going to use them.
• 38:32
  Yeah. I mean, like, you know, you just
• 38:34
  met like a couple at my cookout like a couple months ago and
• 38:38
  they, they liked you and they're like, they just reached out to
• 38:41
  me. If you're a.
• 38:41
  Contact they were mainly laughing at how bad we were at
• 38:43
  all the long games but if that's good yeah exactly you're.
• 38:46
  Bad at cornhole or can jam or yeah, beer pong.
• 38:50
  People laugh at you, they don't like you.
• 38:51
  You're really good at selling houses.
• 38:53
  So I mean try that's I try. Gotta be good at something so.
• 38:58
  This is incredible. What what, what's your like
• 38:59
  ideal ideal client in the financial services business
• 39:02
  right now? That's a really good question.
• 39:05
  I honestly, I, I kind of relate to people that are kind of in
• 39:07
  the same situation as myself, like 35 to 45, just a couple
• 39:11
  young kids. They get, they want to set stuff
• 39:13
  up for their kids, but they also want need to prioritize
• 39:15
  themselves so they're not like broke when their kids go to
• 39:18
  college. So just try to get them set up
• 39:22
  and saving, you know, 15 to 20% of what they can to XYZ and just
• 39:27
  help them understand like the order of operations and the
• 39:30
  priorities they should set. Like that window is kind of like
• 39:32
  my sweet spot. I just think we have a lot to
• 39:34
  relate to, you know, same age, same life, like just we're all
• 39:37
  trying to do the same thing. Like whether somebody makes
• 39:39
  1,000,000 bucks or 50 grand, like we're all trying to do the
• 39:42
  same thing. Like so you just, you know, I
• 39:44
  think we just relate to again, it comes down to just lifestyle.
• 39:46
  Like you can relate to people, they trust you and that's going
• 39:49
  to work with you. Love it.
• 39:52
  All right, so 11 less. This has been amazing.
• 39:54
  We could chat about this all day long.
• 39:55
  As you've already said, give us one thing like what's a lesson
• 39:59
  you've learned as an entrepreneur or you know
• 40:01
  something that you might tell yourself.
• 40:03
  You know, if you could look back everything you've learned by
• 40:05
  being an entrepreneur the last decade plus, what would you tell
• 40:07
  yourself or the listeners that that might help them, you know,
• 40:11
  in their entrepreneurial journey?
• 40:13
  I mean, in short, go for it. Like, what's the alternative?
• 40:16
  You're just gonna like grab a paycheck from AW2?
• 40:18
  Like, so one thing I learned from the chip business is I
• 40:21
  wasn't in charge as long as I didn't have empty shelves.
• 40:24
  Like I was in charge of essentially how much I was going
• 40:26
  to make, right? Like if you're AW 2, like you
• 40:29
  are expendable, COVID show that to everybody.
• 40:32
  Like all of a sudden, like so many people got laid off.
• 40:34
  Like if you're AW two, you're expendable.
• 40:36
  So like, if you want to start your own thing, go for it.
• 40:38
  Like the, the everything we have available to us now with just AI
• 40:42
  in general, you could make so much money.
• 40:46
  It's like so easily so doing so many different things.
• 40:49
  In short, just go for it. Like I don't want to be boring.
• 40:53
  I love that. Take the chance, take the risk,
• 40:56
  go for it. Yeah, if it scares you and
• 40:58
  excites you, go for it. I love that.
• 41:00
  Yeah, I love that. Mark.
• 41:02
  It's been awesome having you on. Exactly this.
• 41:05
  Has been really cool. So thank you so much for having
• 41:07
  us. We will have all of Mark's
• 41:09
  information. Mark Condon, serial
• 41:11
  entrepreneur, founder, owner of I puppy, an incredible financial
• 41:16
  advisor and just even a better person.
• 41:18
  So thanks for thanks for coming on man, and we'll be talking
• 41:21
  soon. Appreciate it.
• 41:22
  Thank you both. Thank you.