Jesse Lakes - Geniuslink

WEBVTT

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So first started kind of blogging, first started my own little you know web design ventures and you know that first venture, that really pushed hard.

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Mine was named One Point Internet Solutions, cyber fixation that was.

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Oh, I can't wait until the Netflix Genius Link documentary movie comes out.

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I'm an entrepreneur.

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I like to, you know, drive and grind.

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That's just yeah, it's important for me.

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I'm sending a cake.

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I'm sending a big fat GeniusLink cake I got some more stories, but I'm not sure where the NDA expires on some of this.

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Oh, there he is, how you doing.

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I've seen this setup before when we're talking about honey.

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Right, yeah, yeah, yeah um, I uh that, honey one was the first time we brought in this youtuber and she got me a studio setup and I'm still trying to figure out how to use it.

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So, um, I love it.

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I love that video like I didn't even.

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I didn't even want to see the honey video.

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I just shirts out.

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Yeah, it's not.

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The outtakes got more views than the out.

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Yeah, surprise, surprise that's great, that's uh maybe that's a marketing tactic is just feel like you want to put a really serious video out and then just uh, take a long time and and take a b-roll and and put that out exactly, um, I got these damn lights that are super bright in my face, uh, no, I don't want that, I want there you go maybe, maybe I do want that, but then I don't know.

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But what are they?

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I've got two Avgado key lights Exactly, you have to spend forever just making sure that I can get in here.

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That's too many controls for me.

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No, I have the same thing, but I have it on my computer and I'm like, oh, I could be really dark or I could be really warm and tan.

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Like, oh, yeah, there we go, but just get real, well, yeah, a lot of color.

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I just came back from the coast.

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Exactly Living in Seattle.

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no such thing as color here, how you been.

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Oh wait, I just lost it.

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I think it came undone.

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What do we think?

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No, uh, no.

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If you have, like uh, some notebook paper that you could draw on and like hold it up, we could sort of do like uh, uh, what's the?

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Oh, yeah, totally, what's the christmas, what's the christmas movie where he's got the cards right and he's like, uh, uh, what's the?

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Oh, yeah, totally, what's the christmas, what's the christmas movie where he's got the cards right and he's like, uh, we do an interview like that.

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Uh, uh, no, not say anything.

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What am I thinking about?

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Uh, yeah, I can't remember love.

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Actually, that was it when you were, when you were moving it earlier, I heard something sort of like uh, get disconnected oh, yeah, oh that's it.

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Yeah, we're good, okay, great, so I think what we're gonna do is this is the trailer for the episode I think exactly this part is the trailer for the episode and then, uh, if people want the, the, the meat and the content, I'm like I've got to come listen.

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Exactly.

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Yeah, no, you've played this game.

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Okay, is that?

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Are we good?

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Can I make sure I?

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stop fucking with stuff.

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Okay, you ready to have that actual conversation?

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Kyle how are you?

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You know what I think we should do.

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I think we should do 55 more minutes.

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I think we should mess with all our fun tech gear and stuff like that.

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And then we should mess with all our fun tech gear and stuff like that, and then we should just call it like that's.

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That's the point of having gear If you can't play with it, right, you know, just having it work is so boring.

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Oh no, totally, I have way too much.

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By the way, my wife's always like some, some box arrives and she's like, oh, I'm not even going to ask, I sure it's something you'll use for a little while and then you'll end up selling it on mercari and then you'll end up getting something else and like I've had like five cars like that.

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Uh oh, mercari's great, it's like a facebook marketplace alternative, like I, literally.

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So I'll give you a good example.

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This is my favorite.

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Well, not my favorite.

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This is the hot spot I use uh 18 net gear, um, but it's terrible because it takes like 50 years to like boot up and it has no battery life.

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So, anyways, I just went yesterday and got that Nighthawk M7 Pro, which is great.

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I did super, super fast 300 megs a second is like what I was getting on this.

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So what I do is I reboot, I reset this one, the factory, and I stick it on Mercari for 160 bucks and already, like two or three people like tell me about the thing.

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And where can I stick it in a box for eight bucks and then they buy it and I get the cash yeah, that's awesome yeah, because I kind of need a sponsor here for this there's, there's our ad insert that's good, brought to you by genius link brought to you by rikari there you go.

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Yeah, it's good, that's good because it oh, I'm oh man, it's like a crazy roller coaster.

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It's like a crazy, it's amazing, it's so, but it's it's, but I love it.

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I mean, I'm just there's no way I can possibly do all the things.

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Uh, you know, and, and I only wish that I had, uh, 48 hours of a day, but, um, but it's so fun, because then I just wake up and like I'm just so anxious to like get going again, and then you know, and then just like crank and see stuff moving and happening and we onboarded new people on the team today and like it, just it's crazy awesome.

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Yeah, I'm addicted to short feedback loops, right, and I think that's exactly what you're describing.

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It's like I can work my ass off and I see the results so much quicker.

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Where you know, back in the old corporate gig, it would take forever to see that work actually be realized.

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So, yeah, short feedback loops, I hear you, I love it.

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We literally so Lazar, our mobile development lead.

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When's this?

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Was this?

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Tuesday or Monday, I think, was like oh, I built in this QR scanner so that, basically, you hit any QR and you just save it as a stack list card.

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It was like Monday or Tuesday, I think.

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I was like it's amazing, we should ship it and we're waiting for Apple to approve it right now.

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That's amazing.

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Three days later, we're like like, get this shit out of here.

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Let's see what people think I love it.

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So awesome, so happy to hear um well, so last time, uh, you and I were hanging out, we we ate.

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I don't remember what the name of the place is.

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I think I saved it as a stackless card, but uh it was tasty taf it totally was.

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It was taste.

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I'm gonna have to find it again.

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So it was was Gary V's place and it.

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That's right.

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I'm going to link to the card in the stack list notes.

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But like it was Gary V's place and it looked like an old sort of 50s diner, 50s, 60s diner and I remember we were sitting there looking at the menu being like I don't know.

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Just a couple of all the things.

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I think of things.

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I think I ordered my same thing, was it risotto?

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I think I ordered my.

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I got two certain things, but it was so good.

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I think I had the same thing and it was incredibly good.

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Yeah, yeah yeah, totally, um, amazing.

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Well, I'm super excited to hear about like I've been a fan of genius thing for for a while, but obviously, as we started snack list and and I you know, I think you were one of the first people that I when, when it started to actually become a thing that wasn't just this raggedy prototype that I only had on my desktop locally.

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Once it started to become a thing, I think you were one of the first people I reached out to and I was like, okay, I'm building this thing and it's powered by Lynx and you know Lynx, we should talk.

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So I think you've been on this journey probably longer than any other partner or collaborator, than anybody else, so I appreciate that Been on this road for a while but on your journey it's incredible how quickly you've been moving though Every update.

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Things are happening very quick, so I'm super impressed with how you've been able to pull that off so nice work.

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Cool.

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Well, I appreciate it.

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Well, I'm super impressed with how GeniusLang is just like dominated in the affiliate linking and attribution space Slow and steady.

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Oh, but just like, ah, just get it.

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Get it so great, I think.

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But before we dive in, I think one of the things I want to do is what leads up to that.

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So I'm super interested.

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Going back, you know, previous, to Genius Link, which I know had a different name in its early incarnation, but sort of, I think, even going back before business, do you have anything do you feel like either upbringing family mindset personality?

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Do you have anything do you feel like either upbringing family mindset personality?

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Do you have anything that you feel like was sort of baked in to who you are that sort of led towards this entrepreneurial path?

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Absolutely right.

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It's that classic.

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You know, looking forward it's hard to see, but you look back and it's an incredibly straight line of these different data points.

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I really think it started with my mom being an entrepreneur and my dad working in a newspaper.

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So, you know, kid of the 80s, right, born in 81.

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So computers, you know, watch kind of this evolution.

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My dad was, you know, again, a reporter at this newspaper and he was, you know, relatively far away from the city so he had his own machine.

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He would do his own stories.

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I was allowed to play games occasionally and that really kind of helped develop that love for computers.

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But then you know, one of um, I think it was like a christmas present, one year we were allowed like 10 hours of aol because we lived out kind of in the boonies and that was a big deal because that was like long distance phone call time and that was just like I hear that that startup sound in my head.

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Are you still a whistlet?

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um, so yeah, like the technology piece was super fun to to watch, right, you know exactly that dialing in, you get excited whole brand new world you could explore.

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So, um, really enjoyed computers at first and then the internet more in particular.

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Kind of you know, as, as that technology evolved, on the flip side, my mom is an entrepreneur kind of you know it was really fun watching her.

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How will we work?

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Right, you own all the process.

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You're doing different things all the time, how it all comes together.

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And I would go with her.

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She was a craft person, she made futons and pillows or whatever, and I'd go with her to these art fairs and I would help her sell.

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It was really cool to sell something that I knew I watched her build and then put the cash in in you know, like my little you know wallet thing and just that transaction of being able to earn money was definitely pretty, pretty powerful.

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So I think that was, you know, kind of the very early days, but you know it continues to.

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You know, expand piece by piece, right, you know, uh, high school, I graduated 99.

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You know it was kind of you know-com was starting to blow up.

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Get to college, learn a few things and then just seeing the dot-com crash through some of my you know different classmates and professors, I had written a business plan that was very much, you know, focused on the internet.

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I had done a little side gig, so that was kind of like that next piece, right.

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That kind of led to this whole.

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You know where we are today.

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That kind of led to this whole.

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You know where we are today.

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So first started kind of blogging, first started my own little you know web design and ventures and you know that first venture that really pushed hard.

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One Point Internet Solutions.

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Mine was named One Point Internet Solutions.

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I love it.

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I love it, it was that very 2000-y kind of name, you know.

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Cyber Fixation that was it's got kind of name you know, right, cyber fixation.

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That was, oh it's got a little bit of a dull kind of way.

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It was not intended, as you know, a 17, 18 year old kid.

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Maybe it was the 30 percent of the traffic that came to the website was not what they thought they were, but hey you're gonna build a website.

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I was looking for a website yeah, yeah, exactly, that's so great yeah, that evolved into this other big project called nifty tricks which was like kind of that first little bit of of um learning the hard side of you know, not building websites or whatever, but ad dollars disappearing overnight, and that was really kind of the whole introduction to affiliate, which is another bit of the story.

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But that was, that was kind of the core foundation where well, the first I guess third of the story of where it all kind of comes from.

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So I'll take a breath there.

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But yeah, it sounds like you had very similar upbringings of yeah diving in, yeah being so excited to have some online time, the the lessons that yeah remember geocities, remember building building your first, oh, totally first websites and I was, uh, so my, my first, where I was building bvs's on, like, oh, you know 56k, you know trying to shotgun 56k modems and doing like, uh, was it panther or tiger bbs?

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Like there was one of those, like you could stand them up and you would try and invite people in.

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It almost feels like circle or or mighty networks or whatever is is sort of the evolution of the PBS, where you sort of stand up, you've got some rooms and invite people in.

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But I feel like you and I are very much what I refer to as the Nintendo generation, because it is so specifically different for the people that grew up.

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Either atari 2600 and or right in that, like nintendo just sort of dominated that yeah piece that we were bringing computers into our home.

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It started with the nintendo and the nes and then it sort of went to sega and you know and things like that.

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But then at the same time you had uh, I think for me it was the ibm.

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Ps2 was like the first sort of like.

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You went to Office Depot and you bought one and it came in a couple of boxes and you came home and you put it together Like it was a whole thing and then you had Compuser.

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I think I almost feel like anybody that grew up right around our time in that, like you know, really late 70s or early 80s are wired differently because of that, like it just started right then in the beginning of the 80s and it and and and you're almost wired different, uh, because you grew up with that absolutely, and it's again.

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You go back to those roots, right, it's, it's.

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We are who we are because of of the paths and choices we took in those early formative years.

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So completely agree with you totally, and you're uh, you had web hosting, right, you were, you were in and around, uh, did you do web hosting?

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yeah.

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So fast forward a couple years, right.

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So built a website yeah, this, this nifty tricks thing the ad dollars were not what I forecasted was kind of forced into affiliate.

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That kind of sat there for a little bit.

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But, um, a couple roommates and I, yeah, we, we spun up a web hosting company, ion Ion Solutions, and that was an interesting endeavor.

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That was kind of our last few years of college and it was interesting.

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So we had all these different ideas.

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We're all kind of entrepreneurs that most of us lived in the same house.

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It's like, oh, we should just do the same stuff together and run with it.

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So that was really kind of that first foray into working with friends, with friends working.

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You know the kind of side hustle at college et cetera.

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They never really became big but it was enough of a validation that if you focus and you work together and you kind of align some paths, you can actually build something.

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And you know college kids we were competing against you know businesses in town and you know we were.

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We were getting customers, not a ton, but we were getting customers and that was.

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I was really gratifying that's amazing.

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I I was at airland, uh, right around that time, uh, and so, yeah, I I saw that I was selling cobalt rack servers around around that time.

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but what's really interesting about what you did there is to the point where you were like oh, it didn't, you know, it didn't.

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It didn't really sort of keep going.

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But there's such an interesting thing.

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I liken it to taking like the shrink wrap off, like off a brand new product.

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You know what I mean.

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You take that like film off and you're like I'm ready to use this.

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You scrape off all that, like I take time, effort and money and I put it into a thing and even if it doesn't work, I come away with like okay, the next time I do this, these eight things way faster I'm like I know exactly what to do what not to do, Like I just sort of like I work through all that like briar and bramble, and so then the second time you do it, you're like way faster at it Exactly, exactly, and that's, I think, those iterations right.

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You learn you can build faster, faster.

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You know that the snowball rules faster, gets bigger with each time you do it nice what'd you do?

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so?

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What, what you?

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You shut that one down, what?

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What did that lead into?

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so I, actually I, I bailed out.

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Um, my buddies kept pushing it for quite a while and, um, it was a thing, my co-founder today he was, yeah, one of the partners that sorry my roommate back in college.

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Yeah, he held on to it for a long time and did a little here and there and just ultimately became a bit of a headache.

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But we as Genius Link it was GeoRiot before bought slash, inherited slash, kind of acquired a lot of that hardware.

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So, one of our early things we've been doing this for 13 years but because of his background and infrastructure and networking and you know he writes code but he loves the networking as well we had our own server racks.

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Um, we would, yeah, this place I live in seattle, right, we've got you know this, this colo we would go to and you know you'd get the occasional you know ping in the middle of the night that a hard drive went down and you know, the next day we go and swap it out and buy another you know server to make sure there wasn't a big issue next time.

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Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:17:05.173 --> 00:17:29.518
So, yeah, in the early days it was really interesting having both software and hardware, because cloud was just starting to pick up, it was kind of expecting to go with some other solution, but we were able to keep costs significantly lower than our peers because he knew how to manage that and I was just the guy that would be freezing my ass off at the other colo holding holding a screwdriver in pieces as it was fixing stuff that's amazing.

00:17:29.999 --> 00:17:34.635
Yeah, there's nothing like standing in a co-location, like uh, with servers around.

00:17:34.635 --> 00:17:35.117
There's something.

00:17:35.137 --> 00:17:48.141
There's something really and oddly satisfying about like having oh exactly humming and you just know that there's like so much information being sent and we, you know, we don't really get that right now because everything's just, you know, up in the cloud or whatever and you don't really feel that.

00:17:48.141 --> 00:17:51.471
But like it's so interesting being in one of those servers.

00:17:51.471 --> 00:17:54.441
Um, I think, yeah, it's interesting though.

00:17:54.441 --> 00:18:09.266
So really you, even from that first web hosting and then into the, the sort of first iteration of genius, think you really have have sort of continued this same thread and had partners along that whole way, right.

00:18:10.488 --> 00:18:11.390
Yes and no right.

00:18:11.390 --> 00:18:16.690
So I told you kind of the first third of the story and we jumped to like the last beginning of the third of the story.

00:18:16.690 --> 00:18:18.163
There's a whole section there as well.

00:18:18.163 --> 00:18:22.011
I graduate college and I was a whitewater rafting guide bum.

00:18:22.011 --> 00:18:24.424
I was bouncing between Colorado and Costa Rica.

00:18:24.424 --> 00:18:33.248
I had spent my fall and spring working on these web projects, these geek projects, and that was kind of more of kind of building that thread and that was a lot of kind of solo projects.

00:18:33.248 --> 00:18:40.252
And the soundtrack websites were kind of the first ones that really kind of took off and were really interesting.

00:18:40.400 --> 00:18:46.824
So I'd take, you know, every year Warren Miller comes out with a new film of you know 50 some odd songs, list those out with links to iTunes and Amazon.

00:18:46.824 --> 00:19:03.193
And it was yeah, again, kind of yeah, it was fun to finally build something pretty much completely by myself from the ground up that could actually made some money not a ton of money, but would definitely buy me a season pass goes off into Costa Rica but it kind of worked out well.

00:19:03.193 --> 00:19:11.401
So there was definitely a period of solopreneur as well, but a lot of that solopreneur I would need something I'd go back to.

00:19:11.401 --> 00:19:12.845
You know his name is Jesse as well.

00:19:12.845 --> 00:19:16.101
But you know, go back to the other, jesse, and just take can you build this for me real quick?

00:19:16.101 --> 00:19:18.022
And I'd go back to you know kind of building on my own.

00:19:18.022 --> 00:19:24.790
But just realize that you know, we'd know this for a while we've been best friends forever but just like we work really well together, why?

00:19:24.790 --> 00:19:25.231
Why?

00:19:25.231 --> 00:19:26.472
Yeah, what's what's going on here?

00:19:26.993 --> 00:19:36.105
So it was, you know, kind of taking a soundtrack website that after a few years had this hockey stick growth and traffic and real flat revenue that I realized just something's going on.

00:19:36.105 --> 00:19:45.707
So the aha moment was when I realized that you know the links I was putting, these affiliate links I was putting on the website people around the world were clicking on because they love music and skiing and snowboarding, whatever.

00:19:45.707 --> 00:19:52.207
But because they were pointing to amazoncom and the us itune store, all these international people were serving up broken links.

00:19:52.207 --> 00:19:59.732
So that was the moment there's like, okay, there there's a much bigger technological side of this where there needs to be a partner.

00:19:59.732 --> 00:20:02.410
So, yeah, started off, you know, good friend, doing stuff with, with friends, etc.

00:20:02.410 --> 00:20:02.810
Solopreneur period.

00:20:02.810 --> 00:20:04.356
And then you know, kind of big realization, everything came together, etc.

00:20:04.356 --> 00:20:06.626
Solopreneur period, and then you know kind of big realization.

00:20:06.626 --> 00:20:07.451
Everything came together.

00:20:07.451 --> 00:20:12.207
I need I need a technical co-founder technical co-founders to help with this.

00:20:12.207 --> 00:20:13.750
There's there's more to that story as well.

00:20:13.770 --> 00:20:33.084
We'll get to in a minute well, I'd be interested also, like like week before, day before day of like right in that, when you realize it's the hockey stick, that's it's, it's the thing behind the links, like, like, it's all about the links, like right around that period, uh, when, what was the?

00:20:33.084 --> 00:20:41.628
What was the first move to to sort of really start into into genius link from a uh like this is the thing, this is the focus yeah, yeah.

00:20:41.669 --> 00:20:42.791
So great question.

00:20:42.791 --> 00:20:50.897
Um, I, I again living that bum lifestyle, you know I, you know work on these projects.

00:20:50.897 --> 00:21:00.047
It was, it was super fun, but it was just really kind of that a realization there's more technology that needs to happen, there's more opportunity that's here, there's.

00:21:00.047 --> 00:21:11.807
There's really this fundamental gap of what, what could and should be be done, and that was just realizing that this had been kind of a, a passion, a hobby.

00:21:11.807 --> 00:21:21.507
It didn't need to be crazy because I was, yeah, my raft guiding was was, you know, paying the bills, um, but that was kind of, yeah, part of the whole thing of no, there's, there's more here.

00:21:21.507 --> 00:21:22.789
This is this.

00:21:22.789 --> 00:21:25.423
This rules can flip-flop.

00:21:25.423 --> 00:21:26.989
You know, rafting can be the passion.

00:21:26.989 --> 00:21:31.259
This could actually be something that pays the bills, but it took a while.

00:21:31.259 --> 00:21:35.810
It took, honestly, about a year from that aha until something actually came together.

00:21:36.192 --> 00:21:37.423
Um, you know the classic.

00:21:37.423 --> 00:21:39.367
You know you're working with an engineer.

00:21:39.367 --> 00:21:40.932
I told what the problem is.

00:21:40.932 --> 00:21:41.983
He's like, yeah, I could fix it.

00:21:41.983 --> 00:21:43.651
It's like, okay, awesome, go do it.

00:21:43.651 --> 00:21:45.921
It's like, no, you got to write me the requirement stock.

00:21:45.921 --> 00:21:48.003
You got to tell me everything I need to know.

00:21:48.003 --> 00:21:49.426
I'm not gonna go figure that, figure that stuff out.

00:21:49.426 --> 00:21:53.634
No, that's I write code, you you go, you go, pm it, you know, get, get the details.

00:21:53.634 --> 00:21:56.688
So that sent me down this rabbit hole of just kind of figuring out.

00:21:56.688 --> 00:22:00.288
Oh, okay, that's how it works.

00:22:01.201 --> 00:22:20.292
And about the same time as I'm going down this rabbit hole, another friend that had you write a book about that and that was a really interesting idea.

00:22:20.292 --> 00:22:23.775
So, okay, well, I've got all the notes that the jesse needs to to do it.

00:22:23.775 --> 00:22:25.039
Why don't, why don't I spend that?

00:22:25.039 --> 00:22:36.028
I met a girl and I wasn't planning on going back to costa rica, so I stuck around Colorado and snowboarded a ton, worked on the website and wrote a book, and this book was really kind of.

00:22:37.624 --> 00:22:39.990
I've always enjoyed organizing information right.

00:22:39.990 --> 00:22:49.888
I don't know why that is, but like I like I'm not super organized in general, but like information wise, I'm pretty good about keeping those things in the right place.

00:22:49.888 --> 00:22:53.249
So it just felt right to kind of be putting these pieces together.

00:22:53.249 --> 00:22:56.446
Maybe it was my dad again being an author or a writer for for the newspaper.

00:22:56.446 --> 00:23:14.386
So it came out of it with, like this, something I was pretty proud of the 160 pages, 60 000 words of just how it was called mastering the itunes affiliate program how to kick ass selling books, music and something else um I love it so, yeah, I was, I was really proud of it and just I was about ready to kind of ship it off.

00:23:14.426 --> 00:23:20.311
And actually, you know, see the financial side of it, uh, send a copy to apple just saying you know, I love your affiliate program.

00:23:20.311 --> 00:23:22.691
You got shit for documentation.

00:23:22.691 --> 00:23:23.916
I kind of solved that problem for you.

00:23:23.916 --> 00:23:26.884
I think you'll appreciate this classic apple.

00:23:26.884 --> 00:23:28.726
They sent back a cease and desist.

00:23:28.726 --> 00:23:31.009
They were going to sue me if I was actually going to publish this book.

00:23:31.009 --> 00:23:34.015
So I was a bit of a you know piss your pants moment.

00:23:34.015 --> 00:23:41.811
But, um, I hopped on the phone with this woman, got screamed out for a bit, pushed back, asked her to actually, you know, read the book.

00:23:41.811 --> 00:23:51.851
She came back a few weeks later and, um, that was a pretty pivotal time and I moved from being a raft guide bum to training my flip-flops for a cubicle and commuting Cupertino.

00:23:51.851 --> 00:23:58.105
They hired me on to become a actually the global program manager of the iTunes affiliate program.

00:23:58.105 --> 00:24:01.807
So some random dude using it to actually leading the charge.

00:24:01.807 --> 00:24:04.560
There was kind of a huge thing, but it was.

00:24:04.580 --> 00:24:06.367
I've been always an Apple fanboy.

00:24:06.367 --> 00:24:08.365
You talked about the IBM PC a moment ago.

00:24:08.365 --> 00:24:13.863
My dad worked in the newspaper, always brought home macs or apples as well.

00:24:13.863 --> 00:24:15.188
So I've, kind of, you know, been drinking that for quite some time.

00:24:15.188 --> 00:24:21.192
So this was, this was a dream come true and it was, you know, awesome to work on this affiliate program that I knew a lot about from this one perspective.

00:24:21.493 --> 00:24:24.008
But to actually see how the sausage was made was just incredible.

00:24:24.008 --> 00:24:24.308
It was.

00:24:24.308 --> 00:24:27.140
It was really really great experience.

00:24:27.140 --> 00:24:39.130
You know apple, think of them what you want, but after having worked with a bunch of RAF guys that have huge hearts but they're not usually the sharpest tools in the shed, to go and work with some incredibly brilliant people was just mind-blowing.

00:24:39.130 --> 00:24:41.548
So it was quite the experience.

00:24:41.548 --> 00:24:46.817
But it was two years of Apple that really kind of helped me recognize that.

00:24:46.817 --> 00:24:50.507
What originally was that idea that, okay, there's something here to realize.

00:24:50.507 --> 00:24:57.282
Oh man, this is a serious problem and you know apple's kind of sweeping on the rug amazon is making this problem worse.

00:24:57.282 --> 00:25:01.164
There's a lot of different ecosystems that have what we call this geo-fragmentation problem.

00:25:01.164 --> 00:25:02.509
So yeah, it was.

00:25:02.730 --> 00:25:28.262
It was a bit of a journey between that idea to actually realizing that something needed to happen and it took, yeah, took took some time, took some zigs and zags I can't wait until the uh, the netflix genius link uh documentary movie comes out and I see this one clip of you know I'm I'm imagining in my mind it's shot very much like pirates of silicon valley.

00:25:28.262 --> 00:25:45.090
You know, and, and and, and you're like, you know sending this off to apple, and they're like, and they're, they're sending you stuff and all their lawyers in their 80s suits are like waving their finger at you you know what I mean or whatever, and then cut to you walking through the campus and and, uh, that's amazing, I love that.

00:25:45.090 --> 00:25:49.448
Uh, it was such a good story, yeah well, thank you, it was, it was.

00:25:49.647 --> 00:25:54.463
It was crazy, it was an amazing time, but it really it wasn't me.

00:25:54.463 --> 00:26:14.356
It was this woman that took the time to read a book about someone they'd never even heard of and see the vision of a very unpolished, shaggy raft guide her, giving me a chance.

00:26:14.356 --> 00:26:16.500
Um, and you know, it's she's become.

00:26:16.500 --> 00:26:19.105
She was an amazing mentor, but yeah, it's, it's.

00:26:19.105 --> 00:26:27.567
Yeah, I had a very interesting resume, but it was her that took the chance and gave me the opportunity and power and, just, you know, set me up this crazy way.

00:26:27.567 --> 00:26:32.193
So I, I, yeah, I got lucky, but it was, yeah.

00:26:32.193 --> 00:26:37.205
I I have a lot of thankfulness, love, respect for for avon nava.

00:26:38.648 --> 00:26:39.289
That's amazing.

00:26:39.289 --> 00:26:41.153
Well, avon, yeah, those mo.

00:26:41.153 --> 00:26:51.113
I love those moments, by the way, just to call this out, and and obviously with what we're doing, I've had a lot of these recently, or or at least I've identified them, and I try hard to sort of like get better at this.

00:26:51.113 --> 00:26:54.087
But I, martine, and I call it peeling the onion.

00:26:54.087 --> 00:27:01.343
But it's one of those things where you start to give an idea to someone and they're like eh, either, that's been done before, that's not really a big problem, you know whatever it is.

00:27:01.343 --> 00:27:16.734
And then you start to like, as you talk about it, there's this moment that some people have and some are faster than others, others but you start to see the layers, the layers of the onion peel back and then there's like this light bulb goes like oh wait, but oh, oh, no, I.

00:27:16.734 --> 00:27:23.345
And then, and then, and then they start like just like running, running, running, and you're like great, like your, your onion has been peeled.

00:27:23.345 --> 00:27:30.126
You get it, you see it, like, okay, we're on the same path and so cool that you know essentially what she started from was.

00:27:30.126 --> 00:27:50.724
I see this thing, I see it at the surface level, I take it with my certain, my current understanding of how things are and you should not do this, but it took, you know, it took her sort of having the whatever that inspiration was to read the book and to sort of get get her onion peeled to where she was like, oh, this is a thing and you have found a thing and you should come help fix this thing.

00:27:50.765 --> 00:27:51.244
I love that.

00:27:51.244 --> 00:27:51.746
Those are.

00:27:51.746 --> 00:27:55.169
That's a great moment, cool.

00:27:55.169 --> 00:27:57.150
So I mean, that's so neat that also.

00:27:57.150 --> 00:28:00.393
You know, I love the idea that you saw this, and even being at Apple.

00:28:00.393 --> 00:28:01.433
It's not like something.

00:28:01.433 --> 00:28:12.733
I think some people think that if you have an idea like, if you don't do it today, somebody's going to take that idea and like, and then it's all done.

00:28:12.733 --> 00:28:27.525
Uh, but for you to go to apple and do two years and still see it as such a big thing and also something that wasn't just going to get solved, you know, overnight or in a year or whatever it is that you know it was this thing that was only uh, likely going to get worse, um, that to be able to come back to it after a couple of years of of apple, it says, is awesome it was.

00:28:27.625 --> 00:28:31.175
Yeah, I mean, I stood on that soapbox and waved to everyone that would listen.

00:28:31.175 --> 00:28:32.461
Just yeah, you have this.

00:28:32.461 --> 00:28:36.451
This problem it's yeah, yeah, but it's not a billion dollar problem.

00:28:36.451 --> 00:28:38.243
You know, our engineers need to solve billion.

00:28:38.243 --> 00:28:39.968
That's pretty crazy, okay.

00:28:39.968 --> 00:28:41.090
Well, I think it's a big problem.

00:28:41.090 --> 00:28:43.748
I don't know if it's a billion dollar problem, but yeah, so it was.

00:28:43.907 --> 00:28:45.161
It was really interesting kind of learning.

00:28:45.161 --> 00:28:57.346
You know, and you hear the, the expression, you know, don't, don't trip over 10 000 um in search of a million, right, and it's like, as a rough guy, 10,000 was a year's wage, right, like this is.

00:28:57.346 --> 00:29:01.705
So yeah, it was crazy, but it was a fun journey.

00:29:01.705 --> 00:29:16.942
I'm really thankful for that opportunity to spend some time in a corporate place that I love to respect and just the lessons you can learn, right, spend as much time as you want in college or in a textbook, which is these massive corporations that are super successful.

00:29:16.942 --> 00:29:25.049
There's a reason behind it and it's not words on a page, it's you know, the feelings, the emotions, the, the lessons that are between the, the, the seams, between the.

00:29:25.049 --> 00:29:29.446
You know you got to read between the letters to really kind of pick up on what makes it tick, but once you do.

00:29:29.446 --> 00:29:30.729
It's so incredibly obvious.

00:29:30.729 --> 00:29:32.613
So anyway, I really appreciate my apple time.

00:29:32.613 --> 00:29:36.464
I'm still very much an apple fan boy but oh yeah, I am too.

00:29:36.785 --> 00:29:56.470
I I every now and then I every couple of years I end up, uh, selling my macbook and I go get a really powerful pc and I sort of like try to try the ecosystem on the other side or whatever, and usually it takes about a week and a half, maybe two, and then I sell all of that, like that, to the apple store, just here.

00:29:56.509 --> 00:29:57.392
Well, no, hold on here.

00:29:57.392 --> 00:30:04.492
This is another opportunity for your ad insert for uh mercurio right that's right, totally.

00:30:04.792 --> 00:30:07.486
Yeah, sell it all again and and and start over again.

00:30:07.486 --> 00:30:11.156
But I think um interested to like so, like so.

00:30:11.156 --> 00:30:17.710
What was the end of that two years and what was the beginning of what we'll call sort of like Genius Link proper?

00:30:17.710 --> 00:30:19.765
Was that right after Apple?

00:30:20.667 --> 00:30:27.246
Yeah, exactly so, again had this amazing manager and just, yeah, it was like my second year review.

00:30:27.246 --> 00:30:32.727
It's like, thank you, you're incredibly generous, these are amazing things you've opened up for me.

00:30:32.727 --> 00:30:35.970
But I'm not truly happy here.

00:30:35.970 --> 00:30:42.313
Like I'm, the feedback loops were too slow.

00:30:42.313 --> 00:30:49.983
Like I was doing incredible projects, doing incredible work, like I was making a real difference, but just it wasn't truly who I was and it took me a while to figure that out.

00:30:49.983 --> 00:31:01.666
There was a lot of, you know, shiny lights and massive paychecks that were really made things comfortable, but I'm I'm a hustler is probably not the right term, but I'm an entrepreneur, I, I, I like, I like to.

00:31:01.666 --> 00:31:05.366
You know, drive and grind, that's, that's just yeah, it's, it's, it's important for me.

00:31:05.989 --> 00:31:40.404
So no-transcript to pivot and do it again, and do it again.

00:31:40.404 --> 00:31:45.326
If I'm doing that I'm challenging myself, but I'm also like I'm incrementally building things.

00:31:45.326 --> 00:31:55.333
And if it literally is, just keep what you're doing and let's talk in a year and we'll see if we can, if we can give you a little little something, that's okay, I'm just in.

00:31:55.333 --> 00:31:56.335
So that's funny.

00:31:56.335 --> 00:31:58.347
I feel like we're cut from the same cloth there.

00:31:58.347 --> 00:32:02.932
Because you would imagine a lot of people you're at Apple Like why would you leave?

00:32:02.932 --> 00:32:03.313
You know what?

00:32:03.353 --> 00:32:06.730
I mean that's amazing, it was my dream job.

00:32:06.730 --> 00:32:10.306
Yeah, I got really lucky to get there relatively quickly, but yeah, it was absolutely my dream job.

00:32:10.306 --> 00:32:15.115
So but yeah, just, we came up with a phase out period with my boss.

00:32:15.115 --> 00:32:29.768
My wife was at Apple as well, she was my girlfriend in Colorado and she moved out with me and she was able to do price availability at iTunes, so understood the Apple ecosystem from a different perspective and she just wasn't happy with her manager at all.

00:32:29.768 --> 00:32:37.355
So she had left a little bit earlier and I just kind of she was kind of our first real-time push on this and just saw an opportunity, so said goodbye to my boss.

00:32:37.355 --> 00:32:38.559
You know, we had this phase-out period.

00:32:38.921 --> 00:32:40.305
Uh, her and I moved to the east coast.

00:32:40.305 --> 00:32:41.868
Uh, her parents had a beach house.

00:32:41.868 --> 00:32:44.564
So we went to the east coast uh, beach house during the winter.

00:32:44.564 --> 00:32:50.616
There was a completely desolate town and just put our heads down and it was kind of our mini incubate incubator.

00:32:50.616 --> 00:32:52.865
We, you know, first year we didn't pay ourselves.

00:32:52.865 --> 00:33:06.641
The other, um, the other part of the other, jesse, he's still at microsoft at this point, uh, but you know he's, he's doing, you know, double duty, nights and weekends helping us out and uh, after a year, we kind of got the signal that there's something there, this is real.

00:33:06.641 --> 00:33:08.605
So he left his job, we start paying ourselves.

00:33:08.605 --> 00:33:17.750
And uh, her and I moved to seattle where the other jesse's at and yeah, 2013, we hit it full-time.

00:33:17.750 --> 00:33:20.221
We hit it full-time hard, um, and it's been.

00:33:20.221 --> 00:33:23.932
It's been a wild ride, lots of lots of stories in there as well.

00:33:24.996 --> 00:33:28.423
That's amazing and you're going to be coming up on on the big one.5.

00:33:28.423 --> 00:33:33.273
Yeah, that's crazy Amazing.

00:33:33.359 --> 00:33:35.807
I think technically the birthday is in March for the company.

00:33:35.807 --> 00:33:36.631
But yeah, exactly.

00:33:38.560 --> 00:33:39.365
I'm sending a cake.

00:33:39.365 --> 00:33:42.284
I'm sending a big fat, genius-like cake.

00:33:42.284 --> 00:33:46.509
Yeah, Whoa Ouch.

00:33:47.412 --> 00:33:50.056
Oh, my head All right.

00:33:50.056 --> 00:33:50.903
What's up with that?

00:33:50.983 --> 00:33:55.027
there's oh, it's part of the trailer.

00:33:55.027 --> 00:34:07.663
It's part of the trailer yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah okay that's sorry, man, no it's, it's so good okay, am I straight?

00:34:08.585 --> 00:34:10.869
we have to rebalance right there.

00:34:12.451 --> 00:34:16.019
Okay, don't okay move yeah, don't touch the desk.

00:34:16.019 --> 00:34:19.606
Uh, amazing.

00:34:19.606 --> 00:34:21.068
So you go heads down incubation.

00:34:21.068 --> 00:34:23.072
All right, this is like we're.

00:34:23.072 --> 00:34:34.824
We're doing a thing and obviously you've you've had a little bit of them past, um from hosting and and and you, you, you had some foundation, um, what did it feel like in that early sort of like?

00:34:34.824 --> 00:34:40.219
You know, like day one you're like, okay, let's get pencil and piece of paper.

00:34:40.219 --> 00:34:46.061
You know, you start sort of drawing up like goals, like what was, what was the first sort of month of that?

00:34:47.083 --> 00:34:49.809
so it goes back to those feedback loops, right again.

00:34:49.809 --> 00:34:56.251
Something I loved early on was a short feedback feedback loops the time at apple, again the corporate gig, very slow feedback loops.

00:34:56.251 --> 00:35:07.938
Which is it was, it was a drug, right, you're so excited to go to wake up in the morning and go do something and tomorrow or the next day you see the results and that's just that.

00:35:07.938 --> 00:35:12.067
That feedback loop is so tight and that flywheel just starts spinning and spinning and spinning.

00:35:12.067 --> 00:35:13.329
I just again it.

00:35:13.329 --> 00:35:15.472
I it felt like an addict.

00:35:15.472 --> 00:35:16.820
I had to keep building.

00:35:16.820 --> 00:35:20.672
It had to keep going because the, the dopamine hits were just so incredible and it was.

00:35:21.340 --> 00:35:22.302
It was a legit problem.

00:35:22.302 --> 00:35:26.391
You know, we found product market fit, I think really, really quickly.

00:35:26.391 --> 00:35:26.980
And it's just.

00:35:26.980 --> 00:35:29.423
You know, how do we, how do we scale it?

00:35:29.423 --> 00:35:30.947
Who are the right people to talk to?

00:35:30.947 --> 00:35:32.248
You know, etc.

00:35:32.248 --> 00:35:33.411
How do we chart this?

00:35:33.411 --> 00:35:34.413
How do we market this?

00:35:34.413 --> 00:35:37.784
How do we educate people to this really obscure problem?

00:35:37.784 --> 00:35:43.599
And those were all very challenging things that were super fun to solve.

00:35:43.599 --> 00:35:50.724
At the same time, girlfriend, fiancee, we were getting married that year as well, so it was nice to have some distractions to.

00:35:50.724 --> 00:35:53.248
You know, try to take myself out of it.

00:35:53.248 --> 00:35:58.452
And you know, having having your fiance at this point also be your co-founder, you know, it was a constant.

00:35:58.452 --> 00:36:09.208
You know where do we draw the lines between when you're allowed to talk about work and when we actually should disconnect, and you know oh my gosh, like I get the same thing.

00:36:09.228 --> 00:36:11.693
Like are they saying my wife, uh, does ui ux for us?

00:36:11.693 --> 00:36:18.512
And it's one of those that I will be completely mentally like melted my brain doesn't I have enough.

00:36:18.512 --> 00:36:24.492
I have enough brain juice to like brush my teeth and I'm just about to crash into bed and she goes.

00:36:24.492 --> 00:36:32.646
You know what we could do if you, when you click the modal, and it pops up like if you just had this little, and I'm like, oh my gosh, I got to save it till tomorrow.

00:36:34.204 --> 00:36:35.510
But like we're both just always like it.

00:36:36.820 --> 00:36:37.945
But always like in it.

00:36:37.945 --> 00:36:40.829
But it's really interesting to have that sort of like.

00:36:40.829 --> 00:36:43.012
You're both solving that problem together.

00:36:43.012 --> 00:36:49.365
Also, you got married and you're both co-founders of a startup, so you're like nobody has money for a lot.

00:36:49.365 --> 00:36:52.010
Exactly, it's pure chaos.

00:36:52.010 --> 00:36:53.233
That's great.

00:36:53.233 --> 00:36:53.873
I love it.

00:36:53.873 --> 00:36:56.536
Well, it's amazing you found product market.

00:36:56.536 --> 00:37:00.838
Oh well, I imagine you've seen this problem for a little while and you've been able to sort of identify really quickly.

00:37:01.320 --> 00:37:01.884
I had the problem Exactly.

00:37:01.884 --> 00:37:03.331
I made the problem worse at Apple.

00:37:03.331 --> 00:37:05.701
So it was yeah, it was, you know, coming out of Apple.

00:37:05.701 --> 00:37:09.427
You know, again, apple things are confidential, but I came up with my linkedin profile.

00:37:09.427 --> 00:37:14.833
I had made a lot of friends on linkedin so, oh yeah, well, turns out so and so actually needs this.

00:37:14.833 --> 00:37:18.043
So let's go chat nice, that's amazing.

00:37:18.684 --> 00:37:23.192
Um so when, when uh did did uh did jesse also jesse too.

00:37:23.192 --> 00:37:27.844
Uh was he in in this in the same but moonlighting is that what you said?

00:37:28.646 --> 00:37:32.653
yeah, so he was at microsoft until the very end of 2012.

00:37:32.653 --> 00:37:36.693
So early 2013, he said, okay, let's do it, that's it, we've proven it.

00:37:36.693 --> 00:37:40.505
So 2012, yeah, again, we didn't really start until march, ish, um.

00:37:40.505 --> 00:37:44.621
And then, yeah, through that year, got married, did the the beach house, um.

00:37:44.621 --> 00:37:50.947
And then, yeah, he was working nights and weekends to make sure the technology was there, the infrastructure was there to push it forward.

00:37:50.947 --> 00:37:54.311
But, yeah, it became pretty obvious, especially as we came into the holidays.

00:37:54.311 --> 00:37:57.190
There's really something here we should go full on.

00:37:57.190 --> 00:38:04.630
So he left his I think he was at Microsoft just right about 10 years, so he was kind of at that crucial threshold as well.

00:38:04.630 --> 00:38:09.309
Am I really going to ditch a great job for a startup?

00:38:09.329 --> 00:38:14.940
Yeah, going to ditch.

00:38:14.940 --> 00:38:17.110
A great job for, for a startup man, yeah well the, the golden handcuffs are, are, are can be rough.

00:38:17.130 --> 00:38:17.913
Uh, you know, I know people especially.

00:38:17.913 --> 00:38:19.579
Yeah, what's microsoft stock and apple stock?

00:38:19.619 --> 00:38:29.027
yeah, those were hard to say goodbye to totally being at one of the one of the big fan companies and and being like, oh my gosh, everything's taken care of.

00:38:29.027 --> 00:38:31.452
I've got like I know that retirement's going to be good.

00:38:31.452 --> 00:38:34.068
You know like that's a big decision.

00:38:34.068 --> 00:39:15.306
What's interesting, I think, like so during that period when you think about zero, like the idea of this podcast being zero and sort of where I feel like I am, which is, I don't know what one is yet, maybe I'll feel it when I'm there Did you all have any of those sort of one moments where you felt like it sort of went from startup idea with a little bit of product market fit to like oh, like you woke up one day and you went like, oh, this is a company, I can see it going and growing and like I'm not as worried as much as sort of holding it together with band-aids and staples kind of thing.

00:39:16.219 --> 00:39:23.905
So this is a reference to Peter Thiel's book right Zero to one right, that whole concept of yeah so no.

00:39:23.905 --> 00:39:26.371
That came later in a weird way.

00:39:26.371 --> 00:39:32.800
It's maybe not the whole zero to you know paradigm exactly, but I had the problem.

00:39:32.800 --> 00:39:34.184
I knew it was a legit problem.

00:39:34.184 --> 00:39:35.608
I knew other people had the problem.

00:39:35.608 --> 00:39:42.188
Going to apple, I saw us making that problem worse, so I was able to kind of validate it from the other direction.

00:39:42.730 --> 00:40:00.862
So when we first started, no, we felt like we're very much on one, but it kept falling, feeling like this opportunity wasn't an indefinite thing, like the problems that we solve can be solved at the source quite quickly, but they never really are.

00:40:00.862 --> 00:40:01.764
Um.

00:40:01.764 --> 00:40:05.880
So we kind of kept having this existential crisis of all this work we're doing.

00:40:05.880 --> 00:40:08.494
Is it just going to disappear tomorrow because we're solving a problem?

00:40:08.494 --> 00:40:14.952
You know that whole platform risk, you know it's, we're deep in it, we're making this better, but again they can solve it.

00:40:14.952 --> 00:40:29.048
Um, I would just learn, you know, after time that they don't care about solving it, they care about much bigger things, that this is again still a huge opportunity, but it's not, may not be a billion problem, which I'm okay with.

00:40:29.048 --> 00:40:29.809
Um.

00:40:29.809 --> 00:40:41.322
So we've had these kind of challenges where the landscape shifts, or we're, you know, concerned about it, or you know, amazon tried to solve it and actually failed pretty miserably at it.

00:40:41.322 --> 00:40:49.264
So, uh, that's that a product market fit, no, but kind of one to two or one to ten, has been a very rocky journey again.

00:40:49.284 --> 00:40:50.568
Yeah, we've been in this for quite some time.

00:40:50.568 --> 00:40:51.530
We're a bootstrap company.

00:40:51.530 --> 00:41:06.268
We may well survive, but we've had some nearly cataclysmic moments where within a day, a week, an email, 30, 40, 50% of our revenue disappears, or one of the largest companies in the world lets you know that they're going to compete with you.

00:41:06.268 --> 00:41:12.661
Or, yeah, there's been some big things, so it compete with you.

00:41:12.661 --> 00:41:14.608
Or yeah, there's been been some big things, so it's not.

00:41:14.608 --> 00:41:16.534
Yeah, zero to zero to one, not so much one to whatever we're at.

00:41:16.534 --> 00:41:16.833
Oh, that's.

00:41:16.853 --> 00:41:20.429
Uh, there's some stories in there well, you got to give me one.

00:41:20.429 --> 00:41:21.934
Now I'm all on the edge of my seat.

00:41:21.934 --> 00:41:23.460
What was as much as you can tell.

00:41:23.460 --> 00:41:24.103
Like, what's the?

00:41:24.103 --> 00:41:25.588
What was one of those?

00:41:25.588 --> 00:41:27.257
You're waiting on an email.

00:41:27.257 --> 00:41:27.838
You got an email.

00:41:27.838 --> 00:41:31.304
You got a phone call and you were like are we, do I need to do?

00:41:31.304 --> 00:41:39.382
I need to go go back into to do and guide, or exactly what was the going back to the river exactly?

00:41:39.643 --> 00:41:42.427
um, so yeah, there's.

00:41:42.427 --> 00:41:48.844
There's four that have happened, four events that have happened because of other companies and one that's kind of self-inflicted.

00:41:48.844 --> 00:41:53.434
The first one was Apple.

00:41:53.434 --> 00:41:55.427
We solved two fundamental problems.

00:41:55.427 --> 00:41:56.987
We solved this user experience challenge.

00:41:56.987 --> 00:42:00.465
We solved this monetization challenge right, so big step back.

00:42:00.780 --> 00:42:08.719
Genius Link has various different features, but one of the core things we do is we allow one link to work worldwide and we initially built that for the iTunes ecosystem.

00:42:08.719 --> 00:42:26.931
So when Adele or YouTube or Tom Petty tweets out a link, everyone around the world can click on that single link and get to the song in iTunes for them to buy, when that's a huge experience on the monetization side, uh, apple's.

00:42:26.931 --> 00:42:30.349
Well, the itunes affiliate program was really four different affiliate networks.

00:42:30.349 --> 00:42:39.286
Some people manage the us side, some people manage europe side, some people manage australia, some people manage japan and again, for that link to work worldwide is one piece.

00:42:39.286 --> 00:42:50.751
But for you as the creator and again, maybe you're not a you know massive, uh, record label or recording artist, but you're a starving artist that's written a book that money can be really important.

00:42:50.751 --> 00:42:54.130
But kind of cobbling that together was the other side that we made much easier.

00:42:54.130 --> 00:43:01.199
Well, apple, after I left, saw a technology solution from another third party.

00:43:01.199 --> 00:43:05.202
It was kind of the first real affiliate network that could operate worldwide from another third party.

00:43:05.202 --> 00:43:06.826
It was kind of the first real affiliate network that could operate worldwide.

00:43:06.826 --> 00:43:14.068
So that user experience challenge was still there, but the monetization challenge could now be cleaned up because there's one tracking ID that would work worldwide.

00:43:14.628 --> 00:43:26.010
So we're six months, eight months, into hitting this full time and one of our biggest revenue opportunities tells us in confidence that things are going to change.

00:43:26.010 --> 00:43:27.704
Be ready for this a year from now.

00:43:27.704 --> 00:43:29.972
And that was okay.

00:43:29.972 --> 00:43:30.775
Well, what do we do?

00:43:30.775 --> 00:43:31.858
Amazon's next op.

00:43:31.858 --> 00:43:34.266
But still, it took us some time to build the amazon thing.

00:43:34.266 --> 00:43:39.043
Our two largest clients were, um, uh, ad networks for mobile traffic.

00:43:39.043 --> 00:43:44.090
Uh, because there was such at that point, there was such opportunity to go from a free version of the app to a paid version.

00:43:44.090 --> 00:43:46.059
The in-app purchase piece really hadn't been developed.

00:43:46.139 --> 00:43:48.128
So Apple announces this.

00:43:48.128 --> 00:43:58.306
We knew it was coming, but it still sucked when we lost about 80% of revenue that day, they knew it was coming too.

00:43:58.306 --> 00:43:59.543
They didn't have a need for us.00:43:59.543 --> 00:44:01.048


We pulled out.00:44:01.048 --> 00:44:07.510


I don't blame it one bit, it's just again that whole platform risk being too focused on one ecosystem, diversified.00:44:07.510 --> 00:44:16.690


It did allow us to kind of jump start on the amazon side, but that was one of those where, uh, so yeah, that's, yeah, I got.00:44:16.690 --> 00:44:24.782


I got some more stories, but I'm not sure where the nba expires on some of those and so let know that that's so interesting thinking about.00:44:24.804 --> 00:44:27.322


I mean, mean, obviously this is part of it, right?00:44:27.322 --> 00:44:49.849


Is you leave the dream job and you sort of go hole up and start writing business plans and start putting things into it and then six, eight months into it you're going to get there's a message or an email or a call or something that says most of your business will be, you know, either irrelevant or will go away or whatever.00:44:49.849 --> 00:45:07.353


And that entrepreneur's mindset of you know one going through those a couple of times, but then also from a CEO and entrepreneur's mindset of figuring out where the pivots are and what leverage you have or what you can do or where to put things, where to put focus or you know whatever.00:45:07.353 --> 00:45:17.086


So I'm sure you know you've gained so many experience, so much experience like going through a number of those you know almost on the precipice kind of things.00:45:17.920 --> 00:45:21.728


You've heard the negative side of it right and and lose all this revenue sucks.00:45:21.728 --> 00:45:30.253


But there's one of our three core values is make lemonade and we've been very fortunate to have a great team that is.00:45:30.253 --> 00:45:38.940


That has, I think, become a great team and really gelled as a team is because we end up in the trenches together and it's nice to be proactive all the time.00:45:38.940 --> 00:45:58.639


But being reactive and, yeah, the camaraderie and ability to really just become this one entity that can operate so amazingly is forced when there's a lot of pressure, a lot of outside, and some people crack and it's a bummer and you say goodbye.00:45:58.639 --> 00:46:07.679


But these situations have allowed us, I think, to execute better now than would have ever happened if we hadn't had such a rocky path.00:46:07.780 --> 00:46:14.114


So again, we got dealt some pretty big lemons and, man, we made some very tasty lemonade.00:46:14.114 --> 00:46:21.934


It didn't quite appreciate until after the fact, but it's been again, it would have been nice if we hadn't had to go through.00:46:21.934 --> 00:46:26.244


It been nice if we hadn't had to go through it.00:46:26.244 --> 00:46:28.992


But it's, I think, also a very key piece of who I am and who the company is is having having exactly as you said.00:46:28.992 --> 00:46:30.878


You know, the landscape shifts.00:46:30.878 --> 00:46:37.472


These, these things happen um, so you can bitch about it or you can do something about it I love it.00:46:38.054 --> 00:46:39.324


Um, it's interesting.00:46:39.324 --> 00:46:40.126


You brought up the team.00:46:40.126 --> 00:46:47.543


I'd love to know, like how, what were, what were the initial sort of culture values and how did you start to build the team from?00:46:47.543 --> 00:46:54.025


Obviously you knew your, your co founder, and then, and then Jesse, you know, so you've got this tight knit group.00:46:54.025 --> 00:46:54.467


You know.00:46:54.467 --> 00:46:57.362


How did this sort of the team and the culture grow?00:46:57.362 --> 00:47:03.846


And second part of that you know is it is it local or had you been distributed or somewhere in the middle?00:47:04.608 --> 00:47:08.262


Yeah, so culture is such an important question.00:47:08.262 --> 00:47:09.166


Again, you asked how?00:47:09.166 --> 00:47:17.550


Yeah, the very beginning of the call, how I've been, it's the beginning of the year We've done some tweaks on our mission vision value.00:47:17.550 --> 00:47:20.248


We use the EOS system, a bass-sized version of the EOS system.00:47:20.248 --> 00:47:24.666


So our VTO, our vision traction organizer, talk about our core focus, core values, etc.00:47:24.666 --> 00:47:26.530


That had been kind of updated in the last year.00:47:26.530 --> 00:47:28.775


It was really time to get down in front of the team.00:47:28.775 --> 00:47:35.083


So this core value stuff has been something that's been on top of my mind quite a bit.00:47:35.103 --> 00:47:41.835


The original team again, it was the two people that I loved and trusted the most my best friend from growing up and my fiancee slash wife.00:47:41.835 --> 00:47:55.766


So we worked very well together as a team and, um, you know, as we, as we slowly grew, it was a lot of friends and family, the people that I trusted the most that would, you know, dive in and work with us.00:47:55.766 --> 00:47:57.592


You know my, my, my sister-in-law, worked for us.00:47:57.592 --> 00:47:58.681


My brother worked for us.00:47:58.681 --> 00:48:02.512


Um, by, yeah, our co-founder's mom still keeps our books.00:48:02.512 --> 00:48:05.333


Um, you know, his cousin still helps us with infrastructure.00:48:05.333 --> 00:48:12.878


It was, it was very tight-knit group and I think you know it's, it's I guess you're not supposed to say it was very much family like we.00:48:12.878 --> 00:48:13.918


We treated everyone.00:48:13.918 --> 00:48:17.389


You know it wasn't.00:48:17.389 --> 00:48:19.938


You know, be friendly, but not, you know, whatever we we were straight up.00:48:19.938 --> 00:48:23.126


Yeah, we hung out together, we mountain bike together, we, we had adventures together.00:48:23.126 --> 00:48:28.288


We were an incredibly tight-knit organization and learned some hard things.00:48:28.288 --> 00:48:32.268


It's hard having a hard conversation.00:48:32.268 --> 00:48:41.469


It's even harder having a conversation with someone you love and just create some interesting dynamics, but we've tried to keep that ethos continuing on.00:48:41.469 --> 00:48:43.443


So the core values have definitely evolved.00:48:43.503 --> 00:48:47.271


I really didn't even know what core values were until, you know, four, five, six years into it.00:48:47.271 --> 00:48:48.572


Uh was part of this.00:48:48.572 --> 00:48:52.974


Um, uh, eo entrepreneurs organization has this accelerator program.00:48:52.974 --> 00:48:55.663


So that was kind of the first time I was indoctrinated to.00:48:55.663 --> 00:48:57.989


Oh, are you supposed to write those things down?00:48:57.989 --> 00:49:05.771


Oh, that's actually, and it's become so much more apparent as we've slowly grown and the team is, is, uh is grown as well, growing as well, but it's been, it's been a journey.00:49:05.771 --> 00:49:14.221


Um, I'm pretty happy with where we're at today, but we also, you know, threw out two of the three core values you know less than a year ago to to they.00:49:14.221 --> 00:49:18.403


They were good but they weren't perfect, so they will continue to codify.00:49:18.403 --> 00:49:18.824


It was hard.00:49:18.824 --> 00:49:19.865


You know what it is in your heart.00:49:19.865 --> 00:49:20.927


But, yeah, how?00:49:20.927 --> 00:49:22.288


How do you say that in a couple words?00:49:22.288 --> 00:49:23.708


And what does that really mean?00:49:23.708 --> 00:49:29.134


And when you say those words to someone that's never heard them before, did they get the right feelings as well?00:49:29.134 --> 00:49:46.503


But it turns out that stuff is important to work on growth where it's super apparent.00:49:46.523 --> 00:49:48.853


When I went to work at Sprinklr, I think there was 120 people at the company.00:49:48.873 --> 00:50:14.726


Two years later, we had done a number of acquisitions, but also a ton of hiring, and two years later it was 1,200 people and so going from 120 to 1,200, but even going from three to 10, in that first little bit usually you're hiring people that like the energy, the, the, the ambition, the, the, that, that learner's mindset of needing to sort of like build things and iterate, and you get people that are similar.00:50:15.208 --> 00:50:20.764


It's easy to sort of have a very sort of homogeneous culture in that little.00:50:20.764 --> 00:50:33.099


But as soon as you start hitting I think I've heard 30 is like one of these things where it starts to like you can't keep track of everyone and not everyone sort of is in the mix and you know, and people start saying I wasn't in that meeting or whatever it starts.00:50:33.099 --> 00:50:40.583


Getting to that place, I can imagine you know that you've got to have those things you know both documented and indoctrinated.00:50:40.583 --> 00:50:52.827


Maybe that sounds cultish but but like you've got to have those sort of indoctrinated in in the core group and then, as you expand so that it gets passed down in the right way, um, as you grow exactly.00:50:52.867 --> 00:50:57.206


No, I think cultish might be a bit of extreme, but no, I'm, I'm pouring kool-aid for the team, right?00:50:57.206 --> 00:50:58.713


This is how I think about things.00:50:58.713 --> 00:51:00.922


This is how we've thought about things for a while.00:51:00.922 --> 00:51:07.483


I think we're going to work best if we believe in X, y and Z and we operate in X, y and Z A.00:51:07.483 --> 00:51:17.871


It's a filtering mechanism for who does belong here as a team member, ora, contractor, consultant or people we work with, but also a filtering mechanism for ideas as well.00:51:19.161 --> 00:51:22.248


Does this idea, does this possible direction for the company?00:51:22.248 --> 00:51:26.496


Is that for or against our core values, and it may be worth a ton of money?00:51:26.496 --> 00:51:28.119


Is that for or against our core values?00:51:28.119 --> 00:51:34.000


And it may be worth a ton of money, but that ton of money is probably going to come with a ton of headache if it doesn't fit relatively well with any core values in the short midterm.00:51:34.000 --> 00:51:36.969


So we've learned these lessons the hard way.00:51:36.969 --> 00:51:38.907


We've made some interesting hires.00:51:38.907 --> 00:51:42.451


We've fired much slower than we should have when it was pretty obvious.00:51:42.451 --> 00:51:50.311


But, knock on wood, I'm slowly figuring out what it means to, uh, lead a small company that's great.00:51:50.612 --> 00:51:54.262


You feel like you've you've from a, a founder and a ceo perspective.00:51:54.262 --> 00:52:11.452


You feel like you've hit your groove, like like a good solid, you know, like, just like you said, sort of vision, experience, you know, being able to, to feel like you're, you're settled in the saddle a little bit I'm more settled than I ever have been before, but I have such a long ways to go.00:52:11.871 --> 00:52:15.228


Um, I've, I've, I'm, I think, a pretty reluctant leader.00:52:15.228 --> 00:52:18.978


Um, you know, left to my own devices, I will, I'd become a.00:52:18.978 --> 00:52:26.961


You know, I'm a tinker, right, I'm a dreamer, um, and and then I've been fascinated kind of with the biz dev and sales side.00:52:26.961 --> 00:52:34.666


But, yeah, as the team has gone, we doubled last year, right, so we're a team of 25 now and it's thank you.00:52:34.666 --> 00:52:42.344


It's forcing me to stop doing the things that I've appreciated doing and loved doing before, but actually focus in on that leadership piece.00:52:42.344 --> 00:52:44.847


And I brought in some awesome resources.00:52:44.847 --> 00:52:51.603


But I very much have a long ways to go to really feel comfortable as a leader, and maybe that's okay.00:52:51.603 --> 00:53:00.621


Maybe being uncomfortable with the leader is forcing me to level up more quickly instead of resting on my laurels Not that I have any, but yeah, it's been an interesting journey.00:53:00.661 --> 00:53:10.699


It's one that I've really started to pay attention to in the last six, 12 months, and I'm starting to really appreciate it.00:53:10.699 --> 00:53:11.050


It's hard work journey.00:53:11.050 --> 00:53:11.976


It's one that I've really started to pay attention to in the last 6-12 months, um, and I'm I'm starting to really appreciate it.00:53:11.976 --> 00:53:22.547


It's, it's hard work and it's very different work and you know we've got annual reviews coming right up and I'm, for the first time, actually getting kind of excited about doing those, uh, where in the past it was always, you know, frustration because I just wanted to, you know, push harder on product or push harder on sales or whatever.00:53:24.251 --> 00:53:26.315


That's awesome.00:53:26.315 --> 00:53:28.400


Where do you see GeniusLink going in?00:53:28.400 --> 00:53:31.532


The next I know five years, two years.00:53:33.599 --> 00:53:33.719


We.00:53:33.719 --> 00:53:38.590


I see a lot of things happening right.00:53:38.590 --> 00:53:39.733


Again, I'm a bit of a dreamer.00:53:39.733 --> 00:53:52.594


My team has learned that I need a filtering mechanism before I whiplash the team left and right, but in general, we see a lot of different pieces coming together right.00:53:52.594 --> 00:53:55.949


We see the creator economy continue to take hold.00:53:55.949 --> 00:53:58.568


We see influencers being a very important part of that.00:53:58.568 --> 00:54:06.744


We continue to see Amazon as a dominant force in retail but not the only force as well, so there's a handful of threads that I really would like to weave together.00:54:07.204 --> 00:54:09.992


We've got this background around the localization.00:54:09.992 --> 00:54:13.628


It's important that one link works, no matter where you are in the world.00:54:13.628 --> 00:54:19.175


If you're in Italy, you want to be able to buy in euros and transact in Italian.00:54:19.175 --> 00:54:26.476


That same link should work for someone in Japan or someone in Egypt as well, so that localization is kind of a key piece for someone in Japan or someone in Egypt as well.00:54:26.476 --> 00:54:31.331


So that localization is kind of a key piece Again, amazon being such a dominant force in retail.00:54:31.331 --> 00:54:35.416


They're still amazing, but we're still seeing approximately 60% of e-commerce happens outside of Amazon's ecosystem.00:54:35.416 --> 00:54:42.960


So making sure that this whole multi-retailer model works well too, so that if you are in Italy, you have amazonit as an option.00:54:42.960 --> 00:54:49.934


But there's probably three or four other retailers that you may love, appreciate, or around the corner you can do curbside pickup that much easier.00:54:49.934 --> 00:54:58.014


So localization and multi-retailer are two pieces that are very fundamental on what we've done so far but where we continue to see more and more opportunities.00:55:02.961 --> 00:55:04.507


Links are the glue of the internet.00:55:04.507 --> 00:55:08.880


Right a link.00:55:08.880 --> 00:55:09.603


Links are the glue of the internet.00:55:09.603 --> 00:55:11.146


Right html, hypertext markup language, http, hypertext transfer protocol, ht.00:55:11.146 --> 00:55:12.851


Hypertext is just code for a link.00:55:12.851 --> 00:55:14.898


Links hold the internet together.00:55:14.898 --> 00:55:18.789


That glue is so essential and we've seen success in other places.00:55:18.789 --> 00:55:22.570


But we also continue to see walt darden's, you know, come up more and more.00:55:22.570 --> 00:55:26.987


But being able to kind of merge those together, we see is an incredibly valuable piece.00:55:26.987 --> 00:55:38.414


So there's there's work to be done there, you know, solidifying how important, how strong, how, how sticky a link can be that we're also looking at as well.00:55:38.534 --> 00:55:44.340


So where we're going, hopefully, you know, a helping more creators, you know, turn their passion into a livelihood.00:55:44.340 --> 00:55:51.653


Helping helping more links not end at 404s, helping more people be able to transact in a way that's familiar and easy for them.00:55:51.653 --> 00:55:56.931


And exactly what those little pieces are, I've learned, is not my responsibility anymore.00:55:56.931 --> 00:55:59.869


We've got great people on the product team that are going to figure that out.00:55:59.869 --> 00:56:03.463


It's really hard for me not to have that perfect answer, because it's been my purview for the last 10 years.00:56:03.463 --> 00:56:06.166


It's really hard for me not to have that perfect answer, because that's been my purview for the last 10 years.00:56:06.166 --> 00:56:13.295


But, as a leader, I need to empower them to let their creative juices because they're the experts and they'll have a better answer than I can.00:56:13.295 --> 00:56:14.896


I see the big trends.00:56:16.960 --> 00:56:19.019


I see the big ideas, but they know the specifics.00:56:19.019 --> 00:56:20.965


Oh, my team knows too Anything that starts with.00:56:20.965 --> 00:56:23.873


You know what I was thinking Exactly.00:56:24.981 --> 00:56:26.365


Take Kyle put him in a room.00:56:26.385 --> 00:56:32.052


Let them talk to us all and then, yeah, exactly, put it in this bowl, put it in the jar, and we're going to.00:56:32.052 --> 00:56:35.746


Well, you and I have the same vision.00:56:35.746 --> 00:56:37.791


I think everything is a you know.00:56:37.791 --> 00:56:45.889


What I like to say is like look around your desk, look around your room and name one thing that just doesn't originate, you know, or that you can't get from a link.00:56:45.889 --> 00:57:04.010


You know your life is links and so being able to, you know our well, I love how sort of symbiotic you know you want to make sure that those links work everywhere and they get to the right destination and that that sort of that pipe works, you know, as intended.00:57:04.612 --> 00:57:08.726


You know, I think for me it is the saving in the organization.00:57:08.726 --> 00:57:21.516


You know, when it's so frustrating to be able to have something that you consider one of your favorite things which, by the way, if you haven't seen this, it's a Leica and you take as many cameras as you want because it's digital.00:57:21.516 --> 00:57:26.628


But when you're ready, you pull the thing and the Polaroid comes out, brilliant.00:57:26.628 --> 00:57:28.773


Okay, right, so here's the thing.00:57:28.773 --> 00:57:30.014


But how do I get this to you?00:57:30.014 --> 00:57:35.750


Right, give me, give me a minute, and then I have to sort of like am I?00:57:35.750 --> 00:57:37.375


It was in my purchase history?00:57:37.375 --> 00:57:39.059


No, maybe in gmail.00:57:39.059 --> 00:57:43.387


Or like no did, did bonnie text was it bnh or was it amazon?00:57:43.407 --> 00:57:44.048


was it Amazon?00:57:44.590 --> 00:57:51.351


Right, it's just in the ether and that seems so weird to me that you can't just have control and organization of your links.00:57:51.351 --> 00:58:03.007


Not just because of the links themselves I love the organization of it all but also because when I see something I don't want to share it with somebody, that it's like, oh yeah, that thing Send and it's off.00:58:03.007 --> 00:58:14.894


And then I think what's amazing with what we're talking about from a Genius Link perspective is, when I do send that off, what if that's also an affiliate link, that I end up getting paid, you know, because I referred that person?00:58:14.914 --> 00:58:26.264


to that thing, or I have it on a profile Exactly, exactly no, our visions, that Venn diagram yeah, there's definitely some some real overlap.00:58:26.264 --> 00:58:29.400


We, uh, we're, we're looking, yeah, we're seeing the same opportunities, the same, the same challenges.00:58:29.579 --> 00:58:34.389


yeah, exactly amazing um well, this was so fun, thank.00:58:34.469 --> 00:58:38.586


Thank you for the time and thank you for the opportunity, thank you for the conversation.00:58:39.128 --> 00:58:41.880


These are always no, and and thank you for making it.00:58:41.880 --> 00:58:50.471


No, adventurous isn't the right word, but but I love all our Talking to Ghost challenges because they're like, they feel like startup, entrepreneurial mode.00:58:50.471 --> 00:58:51.985


Right, you're just going to have shit happen.00:58:51.985 --> 00:58:55.768


Your camera's going to fall over, your mic's not going to work and you know what you got to do.00:58:55.768 --> 00:58:58.168


You got to just like let's go do it.00:59:00.567 --> 00:59:03.262


So I want to finish with just yeah, you said adventure isn't the right word.00:59:03.262 --> 00:59:04.907


I would argue adventure is exactly the word.00:59:04.907 --> 00:59:06.148


So back to my rafting days.00:59:06.148 --> 00:59:14.130


Bad things would happen, right, people would get hurt, they'd stub their toes or whatever, and that crisis management was an interesting part of it.00:59:14.130 --> 00:59:27.362


But what I noticed is that when you frame it as an adventure, it doesn't matter how scary or how what you reflect on it in a positive attitude, scary or how what you you reflect on it in a positive attitude.00:59:27.362 --> 00:59:28.043


So back to your point here.00:59:28.043 --> 00:59:42.041


You know, and we will have some, I'm sure, deep emotional scars from entrepreneurship, journeys, of of the crazy things that happen, but when we, when we, frame it as an adventure, I I think it allows us to compartmentalize the bad, appreciate the good, but be able to move all of it forward and have that.00:59:42.041 --> 00:59:46.481


That clean story of this was an adventure good, bad and ugly.00:59:46.481 --> 00:59:48.367


It was an adventure and I'm proud of that adventure.00:59:48.367 --> 00:59:49.130


I love that adventure.00:59:50.320 --> 00:59:50.721


Amazing.00:59:50.721 --> 01:00:04.226


Well, I'm, I'm also excited to be on co-ventures, uh with you, uh, your team and our team, and and uh we, we love the genius thing team and and, uh, and we need to do.01:00:04.226 --> 01:00:05.246


I don't know we got it.01:00:05.246 --> 01:00:07.789


We got to match up event schedules Again.01:00:07.789 --> 01:00:15.195


We got to figure out our next insanely delicious restaurant pick.01:00:15.195 --> 01:00:26.280


I love it.01:00:26.280 --> 01:00:29.271


Going to do is we're going to have oh wow, jesse's we're going to have kyle and jesse's uh, best eats stack and you and I are going to be editors.01:00:29.291 --> 01:00:29.853


Everyone else are viewers.01:00:29.853 --> 01:00:41.704


We can put them on our profiles and then, and then I'm going to find that one that we went to gary v's and we're going to put it on it, and then we're going to start collecting our best eats in our stack and then, and then we can share it I love it.01:00:41.945 --> 01:00:44.028


I love it, it's awesome.01:00:44.190 --> 01:00:44.610


Amazing.01:00:44.771 --> 01:00:51.813


The technology you're building is so cool, so I'm excited to keep hearing about these little bits and pieces that are being innovated and added to it.01:00:51.813 --> 01:00:53.945


So keep up the great work.01:00:53.965 --> 01:00:54.445


Appreciate it.01:00:54.445 --> 01:00:55.447


We'll hang out for a second.01:00:55.447 --> 01:00:57.231


We'll catch up Sounds good.01:00:57.231 --> 01:01:00.230


Thanks so much for coming on, absolutely.