Ever wondered how an idea transforms into a successful product on the shelves of major retailers? Join us for an exciting chat with Tim Swindle, a seasoned entrepreneur who shares his remarkable journey from a teenage golf instructor to a prominent figure in the toy and game industry. Tim underscores the importance of action over mere ideas, sharing invaluable advice from his experience with a successful Kickstarter campaign for the game Utter Nonsense. You'll gain insights into the significance of creating prototypes, testing markets early, and overcoming self-doubt to take decisive entrepreneurial steps.
Imagine hitting a modest Kickstarter goal, only to have your product picked up by Target and stocked in all 1700 stores! That's precisely what happened with Tim's game, and he’s here to share how passion and digital tools like Shopify and Amazon can turn a project into a nationwide sensation. We discuss the strategic use of social media influencers to build product awareness and the inspiration behind creating a game kit during the COVID lockdowns that capitalized on the viral trend of trick shot videos. It’s a testament to how the digital age has leveled the playing field for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Tim also delves into the nitty-gritty of influencer marketing, from personalized outreach to effective compensation structures. Learn how to connect with influencers to promote your product effectively and build a robust brand presence. We discuss the launch of Paddle Smash, a new game blending elements of pickleball and spikeball, and how leveraging current trends can lead to success. Discover how increasing your "luck surface area" can open unexpected doors, like an unsolicited PR effort that led to a key connection with a Target buyer. This episode is packed with practical advice and inspiring stories, making it a must-listen for anyone looking to elevate their brand.
Our mission here at Elevate Media is to help purpose-driven entrepreneurs elevate their brands and make an impact through the power of video podcasting.
Disclaimer: Please see the link for our disclaimer policy for all our episodes or videos on the Elevate Media and Elevate Media Podcast YouTube channels. https://elevatemediastudios.com/disclaimer
Ever wondered how an idea transforms into a successful product on the shelves of major retailers? Join us for an exciting chat with Tim Swindle, a seasoned entrepreneur who shares his remarkable journey from a teenage golf instructor to a prominent figure in the toy and game industry. Tim underscores the importance of action over mere ideas, sharing invaluable advice from his experience with a successful Kickstarter campaign for the game Utter Nonsense. You'll gain insights into the significance of creating prototypes, testing markets early, and overcoming self-doubt to take decisive entrepreneurial steps.
Imagine hitting a modest Kickstarter goal, only to have your product picked up by Target and stocked in all 1700 stores! That's precisely what happened with Tim's game, and he’s here to share how passion and digital tools like Shopify and Amazon can turn a project into a nationwide sensation. We discuss the strategic use of social media influencers to build product awareness and the inspiration behind creating a game kit during the COVID lockdowns that capitalized on the viral trend of trick shot videos. It’s a testament to how the digital age has leveled the playing field for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Tim also delves into the nitty-gritty of influencer marketing, from personalized outreach to effective compensation structures. Learn how to connect with influencers to promote your product effectively and build a robust brand presence. We discuss the launch of Paddle Smash, a new game blending elements of pickleball and spikeball, and how leveraging current trends can lead to success. Discover how increasing your "luck surface area" can open unexpected doors, like an unsolicited PR effort that led to a key connection with a Target buyer. This episode is packed with practical advice and inspiring stories, making it a must-listen for anyone looking to elevate their brand.
Our mission here at Elevate Media is to help purpose-driven entrepreneurs elevate their brands and make an impact through the power of video podcasting.
Disclaimer: Please see the link for our disclaimer policy for all our episodes or videos on the Elevate Media and Elevate Media Podcast YouTube channels. https://elevatemediastudios.com/disclaimer
Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Elevate your Brand podcast, where we help online coaches learn how to elevate their brand, become the experts in their industries so they can bring in more clients and create a life they want. I am your host, chris Anderson, and if you want to make a difference in the lives of others, share this episode. Go over to Apple Podcasts and follow us there to leave a positive rating and review, and together we can leave a bigger positive mark on the world. Today we have Tim Swindle, and he's been an entrepreneur for 10 years. He's launched multiple companies. His first Kickstarter in 2013 was successfully funded for a game that he co-created called Utter Nonsense so you might have heard of it and it achieved a rapid commercial interest and eventually and ultimately went on to be sold in Target, walmart and other major retailers out there around the country. And since then, he's bought numerous products to market in the toy, game and novelty space, and today we're going to cover his journey a little bit what he's learned, what he can share to help you, but also how to use online trends to create hit products.
Speaker 1:
Again, tim, welcome to Elevate your Brand. So glad you're here. Thanks, chris, excited to be here? Yeah, for sure, and we're excited to dive into this, but I'm trying to. I had that short intro there for you. But why entrepreneurship? I know you've been doing it for 10 years, but what got you into being an entrepreneur?
Speaker 2:
Sure. So I think it may go back to my early days. So my father was an entrepreneur, so I kind of saw that growing up he had owned his own businesses. My first foray was actually I was really into golf as a kid. I still am to this day, but I started my first business when I think I was like 13 years old, doing golf lessons at this little like nine hole muni course that we used to go to in the summers.
Speaker 2:
So my dad helped me make these pamphlets and like some business cards that we would put at the pro shop, and at 13, I wasn't really in the position to be giving anybody lessons. What I found was like there's parents that are looking for some an hour of free time and they'll give their seven-year-old up to me for a half hour or an hour to go hit balls at the range. Their game was probably not improving because of my help, but it gave me the first taste of just a little bit of marketing responsibility. Because I was only 13, 14 years old. I wanted to be at the beach the whole day myself and I would know that I had a schedule, an appointment or whatever at 2 PM and I had to go home, get changed and head to the range to go meet clients. Yeah, from an early days I wanted to be an entrepreneur, I think.
Speaker 1:
That's really cool and I love that spirit there. And I guess I won't ask to go play golf with you because you'll probably obliterate me, but I enjoy golf too. But I think that's really neat and especially starting such a young age and just having the aspiration to create something, do something for yourself and be able to open up other doors. But with that over your 10 years I'm sure it's been a roller coaster, just like a lot of people probably in this space realize. It's not a straight, linear path. What are some of the obstacles like the bigger obstacles that you have come to on your journey that you're able to overcome, obviously, but what were some of those obstacles?
Speaker 2:
I think I have a lot of self-doubt and I find this with a lot of entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs that I speak with, where they do a lot of thinking about their idea, they talk about it a lot but they don't really take action, and so what I've found I think that's helped me the most is you one? You should talk about it. So that's like another red flag, I see is that folks will generally not want to tell anybody about their idea and cause. They think they're giving up. Somebody's going to steal their idea right here all the time, and I believe it's the complete opposite.
Speaker 2:
Being an entrepreneur is hard. The idea is I put it at 5% and that's actually got a proven concept in toys and games, because if you have an idea that you want to license, it's worth a 5% royalty. So there's like numbers to put behind that. Execution is what it's all about. It's 95% execution. So anyway, so you know, again, going back to some of the hurdles, it's just it's taking that first step, creating a prototype.
Speaker 2:
Those are the types of things where, for instance, that game that you mentioned Utter Nonsense, talked about it for a year, over a year, with my buddy, who's my co-creator, before we really did anything about it. Now, knowing and especially because it was successful, would have done that so much faster. We've just got to get it out there, start talking to people, make a prototype, get people playing with your product, whatever it is. Obviously, in my situation, generally speaking, it's a toy or a game. So just coming up with the most rough, not spending a lot of money. Some people want to go full bore. If they're going to do it, they're going to spend $50,000 creating something. So you don't need to go that far. Just get the most basic thing you can get, just to test the market and see if you have something, and get that response, that authentic response from potential people in the market, for sure.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and I think that's a great point. It's getting started, I think, for so many.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it's such a hurdle. I mean, for me it was the same kind of thing, like I wanted to start a podcast. Originally that was the whole goal. I wanted to build a business, just didn't know what to do and finally just took that step and said I'm going to start it Enough researching, enough, trying to figure it all out, and just did it. And it's grown and I'm super thankful for that. But then it was the next step what am I going to do in business? When am I going to? Should I quit my job now? All those things taking that step and just kind of overcoming that fear or that apprehension of doing it because of the unknown really gets out there in people's heads sometimes.
Speaker 2:
There's a known. It really gets out there in people's heads sometimes. I was lucky enough to be invited back to my high school to give a talk and there was a slide that I referenced and it's one of these that I have saved on my computer screen and there's two circles there's a big circle in the middle and then there's a tiny circle right outside of the big circle, up in the corner. The big circle is your comfort zone and then the little circle in the corner is like where you grow. You have to get out of your comfort zone and get into what feels uncomfortable, because that's where the growth happens, that's where the opportunity lies.
Speaker 1:
For sure, absolutely. I always kind of reference when I talk to people about the same scenario is do you work out? Do you run? Because that's I run, and then things like that to improve, to get stronger, you're gonna have to push more weight and it's gonna be uncomfortable and it's gonna hurt and you're gonna be sore after, but that's the only way that our muscles, that our bodies are able to grow and get stronger. It's through that kind of those micro tears, that pain that only lasts for a little bit, but in the moment it's like, oh my gosh, this sucks.
Speaker 1:
I think leg day is specifically like oh my goodness it's terrible.
Speaker 2:
But then this has become popularized by ryan holiday the all has. He's like the big stoic guy that does a lot of. He does books around stoicism and he has the one famous book called the obstacle is the way, yep, and so that the title describes it all. Yeah, goal is the way you have to go. That's how you achieve success is going through those obstacles yeah, because it's.
Speaker 1:
It was easy. We hear this all the time, it's easy. Everybody would do it. Sure, exactly so you got to take the path less travel to get to that success, to get that next level and everything with that.
Speaker 2:
So why did you choose I'm interested to hear this why did you choose to go down like the novelty game toy route, with entrepreneurship for the most part, other things, but it is, I know, because some people are really into games and they're really market of people that just live and breathe board games, and then we should clarify that it is physical games, not electric games games so at the time I was a an entrepreneur in the software space, so I was a partner at a software company.
Speaker 2:
It was venture backed, cash burning, fast growing, big teams, very stressful, and I had this idea for a game. So I take a step back and the game I did play was Cards Against Humanity. So that's a game I think a lot of people know, just a fun kind of party game to play with friends when you're having a couple of beers or whatever, and read an article in Inc Magazine about what their playbook was. To bring it to market, because it was launched by just some guys that were buddies from high school. It wasn't like some big Hasbro type of a and I read that and it was just like man. Of course the article makes it seem a lot easier than it is. But and there was a game that we had been playing with groups of our group of friends over the years at lake houses, where you know when we're bored late at night we came up with this concept and it ultimately was utter nonsense and I was like I think I could take that game that we've been playing and turn it into a real product and bring it to market and kind of use the Cards Against Humanity playbook and so this. Because I had a full-time job at the software company, I was like this will just be a fun, scratch my own itch passion project nights and weekends. And so that was it. And so set out to do that and took us about six months from committing to it to bringing it to the market.
Speaker 2:
As you mentioned, we did a Kickstarter, did not blow up on Kickstarter by any means, but we got funded. It hit our goal, which was a modest goal, like $15,000. So it was like the first win just got the ball rolling and then shortly after that we were noticed by the buyer at Target and that was a definite momentum changing situation, very atypical in the space. So basically, just to answer your question, started out as a fun side hustle passion project wanted this thing, just felt like it should exist in the world.
Speaker 2:
The other side of the business, the other business I was used to, which was like the venture backed cash burning software startup. This was a basically bootstrapped product, just I don't know, for fun. The game ended up just taking off just out of nowhere. Target obviously was the big driver there brought it into all 1700 of those stores. Basically three months after we had launched and so, yeah, so it just took off. And I could give more intricacies of how that all came, dealing with the target buyer and whatnot, but that just put us on a path that was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and I think it's neat how it started as that passion project. You hear both sides of it. Don't worry about loving it or doing it as a passion, just find something that the market needs and build it so you can focus on what you want. And then you have the other camp. That's find something you enjoy and love and just put effort into it and it'll grow, kind of thing. And so I I understand both camps and I understand definitely in the later camp.
Speaker 2:
Just yeah, even beyond that, continue on.
Speaker 1:
But oh yeah, and I like I'm glad that's kind of how it's, because I started my podcast and originally I was like I want to be that coach, I want to help other people just didn't fit and the podcasting stuff I just really enjoyed and elevate just grew from it. I had people asking me things and I enjoy talking about that and what podcasting can do and it just happened and that's why I kind of like that Starting from passion thing and kind of making it work.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, the way I look at it is. Any business is hard, like no matter what industry it is. It's so hard. So the reason why I'm in the latter camp is that if I'm not passionate about it, then I'm just doing it for money or hoping I make money You're not going to be all in Whereas with this game, it was something that I was passionate about. I'd been playing this, I believed in it, I felt like the world needed this and another way of looking at it. Even if it wasn't successful, would I still be happy that I did it? The answer was yes, and I think if you can't answer yes to that question, I don't know. I have a hard time pursuing something if the answer to that is not yes.
Speaker 3:
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Speaker 1:
Yeah, no, and I agree for sure with that and I think it's an interesting process. So you start with Kickstarter and then Target was a huge shift, momentum changer. But if people are, they have a product or even a service that they're putting out there online is huge now. So Kickstarter is online. You can utilize that. But I know one thing that you're an expert in talking about is leveraging influencers or bigger name people or brands to drive that product awareness. Let's dive into that a little bit. How can people utilize those influencers? How do they get connected to them? How do they utilize them to push their product in the eyes of in their market?
Speaker 2:
Sure.
Speaker 2:
So one thing you touched on is that if you are getting started out specifically in kind of physical product space and even if it's more of a service, I feel like there's never been an easier time, in a sense, to become an entrepreneur, because the ability to spin up your own website, shopify it's basically like a storefront plug and play, social media drive, ads, so to get you started these days, in a sense, has never been easier.
Speaker 2:
The downside of that is that there's so many people doing that and then on top of that, amazon also. So with those two channels of creating your own website and call it a Shopify store and Amazon, you really can get yourself off the ground and control your own destiny. The ultimate goal may be to end up in stores and end up in Target, et cetera, but what's happened now is that the buyers at these bigger retailers they're looking for the data that you can provide to them with your Amazon store, with your Shopify store, et cetera, to help give them the justification to bring your product into their stores. So that was just a little bit of a side note. Those two channels that you can control right now as an entrepreneur just means endless opportunity.
Speaker 3:
Now, how do you do that? How do you stand?
Speaker 2:
out in the market space and what products are you bringing to market. That's where the social trends, leveraging influencers, things like that come into play. So my business partner, scott and I we had this idea that came about over during everyone was locked down during COVID, and you saw a lot of these viral videos on social media people playing like ping pong trick shots in their basement, and so those were just like going viral. But there was no real kind of like kit or game around that. It was people literally just taking like products in our house and a ping pong and just setting up like a course. So we had this idea to come up with a game where, basically, we would provide you with a kit to create this kind of like trick shot course.
Speaker 2:
And with that, while noodling on that idea, we were introduced to a guy by the name of Tristan Jass. He goes by T-Jass and he has 5 million followers across his social media accounts. He's this dude from Kenosha, Wisconsin. He's a white guy Crazy basketball like trick shots he does. And so we married those two concepts together and launched Allie Hoopster, which is currently out there, and so it's leveraging his brand awareness, his ability to provide brand awareness. Let his audience know about this product and stand out from just. It's a crowded market and leveraging an influencer that has 5 million people following them, that's an easy way to bring awareness to your product.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, how did you so? You said you got connected. It was just a mutual connection, or did you guys reach out to him, or it was a mutual connection we did at least it was a warm intro.
Speaker 2:
We still had to present the concept and the idea and the business plan and the opportunity and things like that. So it wasn't a given but it helped that we had this kind of warm introduction through a mutual friend. But these influencers, they're designed to be found, they're looking for opportunities like this. I think they're fairly approachable. You can look up who their management contacts are. Before we got in touch with him, we were contacting other folks that we were maybe going to work with. And you just, they typically have a ways to contact them because they're obviously ways to make money for themselves. And you just, they typically have a ways to contact them because they're always looking for ways to make money for themselves. And then we gave our spiel and a lot of times like it was compelling enough that, like their management team or whatever, would get back to us. It's not impossible to create those connections.
Speaker 1:
I gotcha. So it'd be more beneficial for people looking to connect with these influencers to find who does maybe their PR, their management type stuff, instead of just messaging directly on the social media platform. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 2:
yeah, I think it depends on their size the logan brothers or jake paul or yeah whatever logan paul they're not gonna respond. But people a little farther down the celebrity scale or whatever scale that maybe are approachable you never know I would say, don't, it's not a hard line answer to that. Try sliding into their DMs and what I would say is that have a compelling proposition. Don't just be like, hey, can we chat? That's not going to work.
Speaker 1:
What's that look like?
Speaker 2:
What's a compelling proposition look like Try to make it sound like you've done your homework. Hey, I've been following you for a number of years, hopefully, and I've noticed you did this. And because you did this, I'm creating this product that is tangential to that where I think you would be a great fit to partner with this. Make it just very personal and maybe throw in about. I think there's an opportunity for you to make X amount of dollars, like just some sort of hook that's going to be like really, you think I can make that much? All right, I'm going to talk to this person. So something like that kind of formula, I would say, will typically have more success than just a broad, random outreach that's not personalized For sure.
Speaker 1:
No, yeah, I think that's so good. And being personal, I think yeah, and personal builds that connection better. So say you've done that, you say you've gotten connected with them and they're like, yeah, this is really. It looks like it could be mutually beneficial. What's that look like? Do they just get a percentage of everything that's sold? Is it an affiliate link? How do you typically set those up with your influencers?
Speaker 2:
There's a million ways to skin that cat. It's truly, take your pick. Easiest is going to be some sort of royalty agreement, because if you do like a true partnership where they have like equity in it, it gets a little more complicated, because then there's just the risk involved. There's, I don't know, commingling the bank accounts, it's just. It's a lot more complicated If you can keep it where it's just hey, listen, you promote it based on the sales you bring in, you get this much revenue.
Speaker 2:
Again, in the towing game space, it's generally about 5% as a royalty, now, depending on the popularity of the person, that's more if you invented something and you were to bring it to like a game publisher, like a Hasbro, you didn't want to bring it to the market yourself, but you had a really good concept. Generally speaking, the flat kind of fee or whatever is 5%. Now, if somebody's incredibly popular, there's just way bigger upside because they can just generate a ton of sales. I call it like the Kardashians. Their fee is going to be way different in this scenario because they can just instantly generate millions and millions of dollars. So anyway, so yeah, so typically a royalty is what you'll see done in these scenarios. Okay, cool.
Speaker 1:
That's interesting because I always wondered what's the setup? What do the influencers get from that? Is it just a kind of upfront thing or, like you said, royalty? So I appreciate you diving into that. You utilize these influencers for your product, get it out there, get more awareness on it. You know, social media now is just becoming a whole different animal for businesses, where you had to have all these testimonials written down, quoted, and that's still very beneficial. But there's more that you can do on social media for social proof, right, to utilize that platform to show the validity of your product.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, the thing we're working on right now is it's a new game that's launching in about a month called Paddle Smash. So this is a new thing that I'm basically spending most of my time on, super excited about it. It's basically a love child of pickleball and spikeball. So, again, going back to our initial concept of looking for ideas, looking for trends, pickleball is the fastest growing sport in America, by a considerable amount. It just seems like everybody used to be your grandparents used to play it, but now it's like everybody's playing it. It's super approachable, way, more fun than tennis and then spikeball. So it's like a mix of like pickleball and spikeball. Spikeball, again a very popular outdoor active sport, and so it marries those two concepts together. And again, looking at social media, there's just like a ton of pickleball content out there. So we are in the process of contacting pickleball players, people that would be interested in partnering with us and helping promote this product.
Speaker 2:
And, again, leveraging social media Also like. One of the first things we're doing is we've started our social media accounts. That's just the easiest way, low cost, to get in front of people, and this just happened yesterday, where we've just started sharing some content. Tiktok is becoming more and more relevant for brands, and so that's one we're trying to focus on, and someone found us. This person, their website, I think, is called backyardgamescom, so it's the exact type of and basically they just cover backyard games, right and so like. Here we are launching this new backyard game, and an influencer in the backyard game space basically found us through social media, and so I like to talk about this concept of increasing your luck surface area, and so just you need to put yourself out there and allow yourself to be found, and that's the phase we're in right now, and just yesterday we had this nice hit of somebody that found the game, found it interesting. We're sending them a sample and they're going to do a little write-up on it.
Speaker 1:
Awesome, yeah, and I think yeah, that's again a good point you made is just keeping yourself out there and just doing it, cause I think that hinders a lot of people.
Speaker 1:
They don't want to hear what I have to say, or they don't want to, they won't like my thing, and they let that kind of again that fear kind of stop them from just getting out. Find you on social media now and if it's a good connection and a good, if it's good for both parties being able to utilize that and sending them that sample for them to do the write-up or for them to show their audience and playing it and talking about it, I think that's in a pretty low inch. I'm sure there's some people you have to pay to do that part of it.
Speaker 2:
A lot of times it'll be called they call it like product for post. Yeah, unless you're like really big time. A lot of times they're just happy to get your product and get free product and they'll post about it or they'll take some. The other thing with social media is you're constantly needing to feed the content machine. That's really helpful with bringing in new content is like you're giving the product to somebody. They're providing you photos of them playing it, video of them playing it, and then you can recycle that content to use on your platform, on your channels.
Speaker 1:
Right, yeah, and it's so nice to be able to have that opportunity and to utilize that Because, again, yeah, the more content you put out there, the more that you can be seen and people are going to find you, and having other people do it for you basically Utilize that is huge. And I think, just again, going back to just doing it, you know, just testing it, just trying it, getting it out, there and doing that is super important, even especially in the product space, right?
Speaker 1:
Because if not, no one's ever going to find it, no one's ever going to be able to talk about it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, exactly. And another important thing is to try to get outside of your core group of friends and family, because a lot of times the easiest thing to do obviously is you're going to share it with your friends. You're going to get a lot of oh that's great, tim, you want that kind of raw feedback of is this thing good? Yeah, and one thing that my business partner Scott does is he won't tell people it's his idea. He'll say I was sent this to someone I know. I'm just taking a look at a forum. Do you mind playing with this and seeing what you think? So then it takes that because people don't want to be rude. They think like you that did it, they're like it's great. But if they don't know the person right, so even if it is yours, there's ways you can play those little games just to get more of that raw feedback on your idea yeah, I think that's a good point too, because people, yeah, they don't want to, especially ones really close.
Speaker 1:
They have well intent but they don't want to hurt you by being critical at all when you need. That actually would be more helpful. It's been good so far. I just have a couple things here still to go over and I'd love to know you've talked about all kind of the process of you building these games, getting it out there, use, utilizing influencers and social media. But if you could look back on your journey so far, first, what would you say has been a really key or crucial moment in elevating your brand, your games?
Speaker 2:
what has been a like in what has been a career I I'm having a hard time yeah.
Speaker 1:
So, like I know you mentioned target, was that like the moment that really helped get that momentum to the next level to keep things rolling, or was there something else that you just think back on?
Speaker 2:
Yeah. So I'll say, like in a lot of instances for myself and other friends I have, there seems to be like this little spark and like it comes from the weirdest places and it goes back to everything we've been saying which I got to put yourself out there. But I'll give like specific examples. We thought our nonsense when we launched it, hired my sister to do PR and marketing mostly PR and she was just doing outreach to people that may cover toys and games, and so she ended up getting a write-up in an article with the Toy and Game News UK, united Kingdom. Our game was not sold in the United Kingdom so I was just like great Thanks for that. Shannon Turns out. Guess who does read Toy and Game News UK? The buyer at Target. So because of that they read the article and contacted us. So this tiny obscure publication in UK wouldn't think anything of that. They read the article and contacted us. So this tiny, obscure publication in UK wouldn't think anything of it was read. That ultimately led us to get that introduction into Target. We'll never think that.
Speaker 2:
And then there's another competitor game out there called CrossNet or just they're like a four-way volleyball thing that's been out there for a couple of years. I got to know the founder pretty well and their story is somehow the Latvian volleyball team one of them, and the Latvian volleyball team apparently has a decent YouTube channel that they post content to. So they played the game and posted it to their YouTube channel and that was like a big spark that a ton of people started buying it because they saw this YouTube that the Latvian volleyball team had posted about it and they had no idea they'd bought it or anything like that, wow, that's cool.
Speaker 1:
It's almost like you don't even like. It's almost like you're doing the right things and you're trying to push it out there, but it's. It's almost like the things that you don't necessarily try to make happen that are the bigger spark. So you're just trying to keep your head down, do the right thing, and then something just happens because of it, and I think those are like the coolest moments to really look at and wow, that happened not because we were like pushing for target, but because we're trying to share ads or anything like that.
Speaker 2:
I mean, yeah, I think there's an important lesson there which is, like, the more authentic something is, especially now, like I think, just I think consumers have smartened up to certainly ads. They know people are being paid to do something, right, just that innate, ah, this feels like they're pushing something on me. When it feels authentic, I just think that can't, you can't replicate that and you can't put a price on that. And when you can create those magical, authentic moments, wanting to start out so this will really, I think, benefit them specifically.
Speaker 1:
But if you could go back in time, maybe to yourself teaching golf lessons, or even maybe at the start of utter nonsense, what would one piece of advice you would tell yourself to maybe speed up the process to get where you are now, or to help that process?
Speaker 2:
Just get started. I became an entrepreneur at 30, yeah, where I quit my comfy job in real estate and decided to pursue the software company and I guess I just and I for basically my entire 20s, like I knew I wanted to do my own thing. Right, and going back on it, it's just I wish I started earlier. I just I wish I had that belief in myself, just to get started. And then you'll figure it out, that's just that's it.
Speaker 1:
No, that's awesome. Yeah, I agree, I think that's. I got started a couple of years ago, so just before I turned 30, basically, and yeah, just get it started. I think it's a huge thing to take away. Tim, again, I really appreciate you being on Elevate your Brand today, sharing all this great wisdom and insight and a lot that people can take away to benefit their journey. So again, thank you so much for your time today.
Speaker 2:
Thanks, Chris.
Speaker 1:
Appreciate it Absolutely, and if you guys are tuned into this or watching the replay, make sure to share with them. Maybe you know somebody who's starting out as an entrepreneur or trying to get a product out there to the masses. Share this, send this to them so they can benefit from what Tim shared, and make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts from. But until next time, just get started, get out there and make a difference. We'll see you, and thanks so much for tuning into this episode today. If you found value at all from this episode, please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. It just helps us get this show, these messages, out in front of more people. And don't forget to share this with someone who you think could benefit from listening to as well.