Bridging Creativity and Commerce

What happens when a talented musician pivots to become a successful entrepreneur? Find out as we embark on an inspiring journey with James O'Brien, who transitioned from performing in bands and singing in choirs to launching startups and raising capital. From the vibrant streets of Nashville to the boardrooms of tech companies, James' story is one of passion, creativity, and sheer determination. You'll hear firsthand how his favorite tunes, from James Taylor to Rainbow Kitten Surprise, influence his entrepreneurial mindset, and why storytelling in music and business can be a game-changer.

Ever wondered how a simple idea can morph into a thriving business? James takes us through his ingenious concept of sharpening disposable razor cartridges with denim and how he brought this innovative idea to life. He shares invaluable lessons from his music and band management days, revealing how skills like operations, people management, and accountability played crucial roles in his entrepreneurial journey. We also dive deep into the significance of responsibility and following through on commitments, whether in life or business, showcasing how execution often trumps great ideas.

Feedback can make or break a business, and James illustrates this with an engaging anecdote from a Killers concert where frontman Brandon Flowers restarted a song. This episode emphasizes the parallels between live performances and product launches, highlighting the importance of honesty, community support, and the iterative process of product development. Learn about the necessity of validating business ideas through detailed research and the power of a dedicated advisory group. Tune in for insights on navigating feedback, refining core strengths, and maintaining high-quality deliverables in your business endeavors. This episode is packed with wisdom, actionable advice, and a touch of musical flair—don't miss it!

Chapters

• 0:00 From Music to Startups
• 6:42 Lessons in Entrepreneurship Through Life Experiences
• 13:46 The Importance of Feedback in Business
• 21:40 Product Validation and Feedback

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Elevate Media Podcast with your host, chris Anderson. In this show, chris and his guests will share their knowledge and experience on how to go from zero to successful entrepreneur. They have built their businesses from scratch and are now ready to give back to those who are just starting. Let's get ready to learn, grow and elevate our businesses. And now your host, chris Anderson.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Welcome back to another recording of the Elevate Media Podcast. I'm Chris Anderson, your host. Today. We're going to talk about startups. We're going to talk about how this gentleman's journey as a singer in a band that sounds like a song right there, got him ready for startups, and so I decided to have James O'Brien on the show. There got him ready for startups, and so I excited to have james o'brien on the show. Uh, you know he has a vast experience with startups, with raising capital, uh, but he's also music. He is also a musician and singer, uh. So, james, welcome to the elevate media podcast today. Thanks, chris, pleasure to be here. I appreciate you having me, absolutely. So. You know we talked before the show in nashville area, so plenty of music being down that way. Do you have a favorite artist or band that you listen to right now? Oh my.

Speaker 3: 1:11

God, that's like. That's like the most loaded question in the world.

Speaker 3: 1:14

It's what's your favorite movie ever? Yeah, yeah, yeah, which we debate this all the time. All right, I'll answer in two ways. If I, if I, only had one album to bring on a desert island and I could listen to it on the desert island for the rest of my days, uh, it's kind of a cop-out because it's a greatest hits album, but james taylor greatest hits oh, you just can't, can't go wrong. Uh, the and then band that I've been listening to a ton recently got rainbow, got Rainbow, kitten, surprise.

Speaker 2: 1:43

Okay, shout out to Rainbow Kitten. Surprise, never heard of them. But there you go, check them out, guys. What kind of genre are they in?

Speaker 3: 1:51

They're like I'm sure I'll botch this because there's so many genres these days and I'm not up to speed, but they're like it's kind of like indie rock, just beautiful harmonies, really like raw. More of a fan of their earlier stuff but still just love all of their discography Okay, cool, yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:07

Never heard of him, so I'll have to check him out after this.

Speaker 3: 2:10

I'll send you some links.

Speaker 2: 2:12

Let's do it. Yeah, I'm always open for it. I have a vast variety of music from classical to country to classic rock, to show tunes all over the board. I was a theater kid growing up, so nice, nice yeah, I don't know why they always I don't know if it's the story within the song and the connection to the movie or to the, to the actual, you know play itself. That I like, I don't, I don't know, but um, there's always catching me, I guess.

Speaker 3: 2:41

So the few things in this world I love more than storytelling. I think that that's what does it for me yeah, yeah, I think something like that for sure.

Speaker 2: 2:49

So, so you, you're a singer, right. What are you? Are you bass?

Speaker 3: 2:53

I'm gonna guess uh, you flatter me, uh, baritone, it's funny. I've got probably like 40 pounds on my brother and he's a true bass and I'm like, I'm like a very real baritone and I've sung bass a lot in my life but anytime there was somebody who's actually in bass I got, I got bumped, which is how it should be yeah, gotcha, that's cool.

Speaker 2: 3:13

So how you've been singing all your life yeah, it grew up.

Speaker 3: 3:17

uh, it was really my first, I mean, apart from, like you know, playing sports as a kid. Um, it was really my first passion and the thing that I dedicated most of my time to growing up. I started singing in choir when I was really young, probably like eight or nine, nice and then from there ended up going into jazz, band, musicals, acapella, and then eventually a band in college, which is really what brought me down to Nashville.

Speaker 2: 3:41

That's awesome, yeah, so I was in choir in high school one year and that's one thing that like, if I could do it over again, I would do choir as long as I could. Not that I'm a good singer, they just need, I think, people to make noise there. So they're like, yeah, just give me a bass, go ahead and do your best. But being in the musical actually was super fun, like I was also in drama but so and so I did drama, you know, in high school, but then the musical was just, it was fun, it was a lot of work, but we did beauty and the beast the one year.

Speaker 2: 4:16

I did it my senior year, and it was just, I mean learning the dance choreographies. I was a ballroom dancer which I had to work like 10 times harder everybody else because I think I have two left feet. Um, but it's just, I don't know, it's just really cool, it was fun and we're small school anyways. So you get, you already know everybody for the most part, but you get to like make new friends and yeah it was just a lot of fun, and so the non-musical, non-singer me talking to James is actually good.

Speaker 2: 4:42

We still have the same passion, even though we're at different levels, which I think is cool too 100%.

Speaker 3: 4:50

People always say that to me. They're like I love to sing, but I don't sing. I'm like just sing If it brings you joy, just sing.

Speaker 2: 4:57

Oh yeah, all the time Car in the shower so no one else can hear me. It's all drowned out by other things. That's cool, you, you're singing and as you're, you know, doing your career within your band. You know, with like I mentioned kind of earlier on, like it led to your startup career right in business and in raising money. How did that start to have that connection, you know, through your band, to doing startups.

Speaker 3: 5:24

Yeah, it's a, it's an odd. It's an odd tale and also probably a pretty familiar tale in some ways.

Speaker 3: 5:32

So we were, yeah, so in a band in college and all of us went to college up in Maine and then our keyboardist had a really cool opportunity to come down here and intern at Reba McIntyre studio in Nashville, nice, um, and he was like y'all want to move down and you know, try to get some representation and cut some, cut some records. And we're like, yeah, sure, we're, we're young, we're, we're young, we've got, you know, no, no wives, no kids. No, no permanent jobs. Let's, let's go figure it out. So we waited for our youngest guy to graduate from college and then we moved down to Nashville, signed a lease sight unseen and just gave it a go.

Speaker 3: 6:09

So we were it was probably about a year, year and a half into being in Nashville and I was, we were. I never remember exactly where we were, but I think we were in like the middle of Illinois, driving in the middle of the night back from a show, and I was complaining about the fact. I was like I like I hadn't, you know, I hadn't shaved in a while, and I was like I really just don't want to buy new razors. They're so stupidly expensive. And our drummer was like, fun fact, you can actually sharpen your razors on your jeans. I was like I was like no, it's not a thing. Turns out it was a thing. Um, and without getting into like the whole nerdy science of it all, um, you can't sharpen something unless you remove material from it. So, as we all can imagine, you can't remove steel with denim, right, but what you can do is hone them. So if you're familiar with, like an old barber strop where you would take like a straight razor on a leather leather piece.

Speaker 3: 7:01

Exactly, it's the same general concept, um, so anyway, you can do this on denim with a disposable razor cartridge and you can actually keep them sharper, like three to five times longer, and keep your razors longer and, you know, be better for the environment, spend less money. All that good stuff. Um, and it was just one of those again I think like kind of classically entrepreneurial stories where had this idea, couldn't get it out of my head. Ended up going and working with a local friend of mine in nashville who was a tailor and I was like, jeff, can you help me make a prototype of this? So we made a prototype. I brought the prototype to a bachelor party of a friend of mine, ended up meeting my um who would become my business partner and he came from an entrepreneurial family.

Speaker 3: 7:40

So at this point and to be clear, I did too, like my parents both owned their own businesses, but but it was very like, kind of like mom and mom and pop, right, it was just like little consulting businesses or like, or little. My dad was a cartographer, a map maker. Oh, wow, nice. So the idea of like making a product into a company never really crossed my mind and, as I'm sure you can imagine, like, in my brain, I'm oh, I'm a creative like business is the devil. I have no desire to do business, and then, the deeper I got into it, and the more that I was found myself surrounded by awesome people who were just like telling me that I could actually do this thing and this was a viable career path. It just got more and more fun, and it really seemed like, um, like creative problem solving on a different level. Yeah, so that's kind of how I got into it, and, to answer your other question, in terms of the things that the band prepared me to be able to do, um, you know, a band is a business, right? Like? I call it my first startup, although I don't think it necessarily is one in the same, but there's operations, there's people, management, you know, there's all this stuff. There's tour booking, there's social media.

Speaker 3: 8:43

I think the most important lesson that the band taught me, though, was and I'll spend a brief moment to tell a story that was like pretty revelatory in my life. I remember, I think, my junior year in college, and, like I wasn't going to have a paper done on time, and I went to my professor and I was like, hey, man, I probably didn't say that I'm not going to have this done on time. And I went to my professor and I was like, hey man, yeah, I probably didn't say that, hey man, I'm not going to have this done on time and he just kind of sits me down and he's like look, I'll give you an extension, but I'm all. But you're also going to have to sit here and take my wisdom for a second. And I was like that's a very fair trade, let's do it.

Speaker 3: 9:18

And he's like life isn't like school. In real life there is no amount of excuse. That's good enough. If you do or don't do something, you just either do it or you don't do it, and that's how you're going to be known. He's like so consider this your last vestige of childhood. He's like from now on.

Speaker 3: 9:36

He's like there's no excuse good enough for not having done something that you had a month to do. Right, like you just either did it or you didn't do it. And never in my life has that been more salient than singing in a band, performing with a band, because you can have a stomach bug, you can. You know, all of your mics can go out, all of your cables can get chewed out by rodents, right, it doesn't matter. Like, you got a gig, you have a time that you have to go on stage and it's essentially non-negotiable. Yeah, and that's just taught me. Those those two moments in comparison Now that I look back and I think about them like pretty synonymously, has taught me a lot about entrepreneurship and startups, because, again, that's really all you got. You say you're going to do something, you do something and that's how people are going to know you. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:23

And then you just keep doing it and it compounds Absolutely. I agree and I think that that's such good advice. It's like kind of funny. It's like something my brother always told me when I was younger, like when I was in middle school, high school. He's like you know, middle school and high school it's recess one, and then you have college and that's recess two, and then life kicks you in the face. And then life kicks you in the face. It's like you don't have anymore that kind of buffer that you can kind of get away with things in those schooling settings, and that's so true.

Speaker 2: 10:53

I think one thing too, is we either do it or we don't. And even if something goes awry like you mentioned, we're both in technology, we understand. We understand that things can go wrong but goes, you know, awry, like you mentioned, like we're both in technology, we understand. We understand that you know things can go wrong, but it doesn't matter, like the client's not going to care, they just want the result, the deliverable, whatever it is. So how do we handle those moments right, like if something does go not according to plan and there's a delay, there's a hiccup, instead of making excuses like just owning it Right? Is that kind of what you found as well along the way?

Speaker 3: 11:28

100%. I mean, you're correct, right Like people, people, people want an outcome. Right, like, especially when you, as a service provider, have committed to an outcome. And I think in you know, in the world of grown up business we call it stakeholder management, right, but in reality, like it's just being human right, it's like it's being empathetic, it's being communicative, it's being transparent, it's like people understand when things don't go according to plan. They totally do. You just have to be. You have to be preemptive with the way you communicate those things. You have to be be honest and you also just have to kind of get out of your own way about like, the fear of like, oh my god, they're gonna cancel this contractor, they're gonna kill me, or something.

Speaker 3: 12:07

You know something crazy, right like they're probably not gonna do any of those things as long as you've maintained that relationship properly and you're honest with them along the way yeah, and I think that's communication is the biggest key and we can always improve out of you know, you and myself and myself and our team.

Speaker 2: 12:23

And I think it's interesting, you know, because you know we have to have thick skin right, because some people might get a little upset at you for whatever reason the product's not up to par, there's a defect, there's whatever delay, like we talked about so we have to have that thick skin to have that be able to take that feedback and own it. Did you find that being in a band helped you maybe build a little thicker skin? For when it came to the business world, definitely. I don't think anyone ever booed you guys, probably, or anything like that, right, thankfully, I've, never I've never been, apart from a room of friends who are messing with me.

Speaker 3: 13:05

Well, I'm glad to hear that for sure. Me too. I've actually never really thought about that before. I'm grateful I never had that. I could have been a could have been a shot to the uh, to the ego that I never came back from. Right now, I would hope not, but you never know. Yeah, I think I mean.

Speaker 3: 13:20

Look, it's like when we're, when you are on stage, whatever happens happens in live time. Hard, stop, right, like there's no amount of retrofitting a narrative you can do. Right, like you can't mess up a song and then like, spin this great tale with a whole audience about why you messed it up. Right, like nobody, nobody cares. Um, one of my favorite examples actually and this was I, was. I was at a. I was at a festival down in um in gulf shores, alabama, years and years ago, called hangout festival, and the killers were playing. I love the killers, I've been a killers fan for a long time and they start this song and brandon flowers, the, the, the lead, the lead vocalist for the colors just goes, stop, stop, stop. He's like we missed that one up. Sometimes it's important to just start again. Nice, and I was like I love that honesty, right, like everybody's here to support you, everybody's here to have a good time. You know like nobody's here, it's not, it's not a restaurant critic, you know, like nobody's. And then maybe somebody is right people love to troll, but anyway, for the most part, people are there to have fun. They're there to have fun with you.

Speaker 3: 14:25

Yeah, it's like, as long as you're just personable and you just like wear. You know, wear whatever it is on your sleeve, like things are going to be okay and it's funny when you do. You know startups, specifically technology, right, because so much of what you do is behind the curtain to keep with our theater, our theater comparisons here, and it makes you feel like you can almost like you can almost hide behind a laptop, you can almost hide behind a screen for a really long time, and a part of that is great because you have lots of time to prepare and you have lots of time to strategize internally and all this stuff. But at a certain point you gotta rip the band-aid off and like show the world what you got, and that's the scary part, right. And I think like and I've been through this a million times and I won't pretend that I'm good at it at this point, but, like, I think that's one of the toughest things for, you know, not even new entrepreneurs just like new products, new technology, new companies, new groups of people, new teams is like finally getting in that rhythm.

Speaker 3: 15:19

It's like, you know, we just got to ship stuff. We just got to ship stuff. We got to keep shipping. We got to ask for honest feedback. We got to not have ego about the feedback we get and we got to believe that, like, the people that we're surrounding ourselves with and the early clients that we have are like here because we solve a problem for them and they understand that, together with, like, good feedback and good camaraderie, we can actually make this whole thing a lot better than if I was just, you know, hiding behind my screen and hiding behind my laptop and not showing our work product the light of day.

Speaker 2: 15:46

Yeah, and I think we have to get, especially ones who are starting out, like even just right now or who will in the future, listening to this. Like social media just amplifies the good and the bad. So you do put something out there. You're going to get a lot more negative feedback because people are a lot more bold to do it behind the keyboard and behind a screen than they would in person. And so, you know, just preparing yourself and understanding, you know it's not going to be for everyone and that's okay, but the ones that are it, the ones that it's going to be for. You know that that's who you should care about. And it's negative. You know, in the algorithm it still boosts you because they're interacting. They don't know necessarily if it's a negative comment or not, they just see it, the comment. So, like, just take it, I guess with a silver lining, right yeah, that's uh, that's funny.

Speaker 3: 16:32

yeah, we haven't. Uh, for, at least for this, for this business, we haven't gotten to the stage for our life where we have, you know, a lot of people trolling us on social media. Yet I, I hope, I hope that exists for a little while longer. But the the core concept remains the same, right Like, and it's one of the reasons why one of our first hires was a product designer. It was like a very like feedback and like iterative, iteratively minded product designer. Cause he was like look, you know, everybody goes and validates products to death right Like 50, a hundred, 500 customer conversations.

Speaker 3: 17:02

In reality, after a certain point, like we've been at this for what a year and a half now. It's like at a certain point you have a pretty good market thesis yourself. Like you understand what you're building and who you're building it for to a certain degree. I'm not saying it's ever perfect and we always make assumptions, but to a certain degree, like you have a pretty good handle on what you should be building and who it's for. But then the only way to confirm it is actually to show people, to let them give you the feedback that they're going to give. I mean, that's why tools like Loom are so awesome.

Speaker 3: 17:30

Right, like we can make a new prototype, we can send it out to five of our customers. Be like, hey, give us feedback on this, and we can shrink that feedback cycle from like two weeks, three weeks to like literally a day. And like two weeks, three weeks to like literally a day. And then we can iterate and go ship out another version of the feature. And it's incredible, it's like it's an absolute superpower and I'm so grateful that we have this guy on the team because he is, you know, although those are things we always believed theoretically, like we didn't have process for it and we didn't really have like a torchbearer for it internally, and because Rose on our team, we we really made that a part of our lifeblood as a company. It's been absolutely wonderful.

Speaker 2: 18:04

That's awesome, yeah, and I think getting feedback is crucial, good or bad, and be able to take it and have that process, for it is even in service-based. You get still asked, hey, how is that like? How did that go Like to a client you've maybe finished a product for where were the? Did you see there were hiccups? Where did you see you know that we could maybe have improvements or what could make this even better for you next time, kind of thing. And actually taking that in and actually asking for it, I think one would still say, excuse me. One, this is a lot about you know, you as a company, that you're willing to reach out and possibly get you know criticism or constructive feedback. And two, it shows that you do want to improve, which makes a client hopefully more inclined to work with you in the future.

Speaker 3: 18:50

Yeah, I hope so. I mean also, you know, in an early stage of a business, very often the usage and the you know I'm not going to claim that product market fit is an easy thing to find, but moving further towards it, like that's a lot more important than actually taking revenue in the door. And I think, traditionally speaking, revenue is kind of your signal for fit and for feedback and it's just a slow feedback cycle, right. Not to mention you could also get a bunch of revenue. You get a bunch of clients who then you didn't build the right thing for and six, nine, 12 months down the road they'll cancel and it's like, well, I thought we were doing something good. It turns out we were totally missing the mark. But now all of a sudden it's taken me six months or a year to figure that out and like that's just I'm not going to say not acceptable because there's a million different strategies, but like, at least in my mind, that's just not a particularly useful and efficient way to understand if you're building towards the right thing.

Speaker 2: 19:47

Sure, yeah, and you know, yeah, and I think the big thing is you just have to have that feedback, you have to, like you said, find that product market fit and just work towards it. And it seems like it's just can drag out a long time until it kind of clicks. And I think that's why, you know, maybe a lot of businesses struggle or don't succeed is because they give up too soon before they find that that sweet spot kind of thing in their product market fit to have, you know, to start being profitable.

Speaker 3: 20:15

So yeah, and I mean that's. That's the challenge, to where one of the one of the million challenges is it's not just like broad market fit is is is tough. I mean obviously like hard stop period stuff, but in addition to that period, um, it's also just really nuanced, right, like it's incredibly multifaceted. You know, you can be building the right thing for the wrong person, right, or you can be building in the right category, or you can be building towards the right to solve the right pain, but not be doing it in the right features.

Speaker 3: 20:45

Or, said even a little bit differently, you can be doing everything I just mentioned, right, but you're not marketing it correctly, right, like you're not doing your product marketing positioning correctly. So it's like, all of a sudden you have these like potentially unhelpful signals where it's like, ah, we're not building the right thing. It turns out you were, you just weren't communicating it right to the right people. I mean, yeah, there's. You know, these are the things that I wish I could show you the post-it notes on my desk. Those are like the random, the random scribblings of James that go through my brain every day.

Speaker 2: 21:13

Oh yeah. So you know, with that too, like talking about product market fit, you know, and all the nuances that go with it If you were to talk to someone who's just starting out they're listening to the show right now on their entrepreneurial journey maybe it's product-based, maybe it's service-based what would be the couple things you would direct them to really really get incorporated or get good at, to start having that kind of growth within their organization or their business?

Speaker 3: 21:40

Yeah, a couple of these are going to be a rehash of stuff we've already talked about, but I do think the open and honest communication and feedback is more important than everything, and I think it comes in two categories predominantly. The first is we've all had a million amazing business ideas. Right, you're sitting on the couch you're like this is the greatest idea I've ever had, and then you don't go validate it. You know, and I don't just mean like start with a Google, right, that's important, start with a Google, then move on to a bunch of people who work in that industry or who might need your service, and I'm not saying like try to get them as paid customers. Like when we started this business and I know this is a little bit counterintuitive to the whole rapid product feedback thing I said a second ago, but you know we've learned along the way we validated it with like 150 different people and it started very broad, like throughout all of business, and then over time we started to see patterns and patterns and patterns, and then we ended up validating it with customer support folks. Before we ever tried to ship a product, before we ever tried to monetize a product, it was just to make sure that we were actually on to something that was worth committing to and, especially in the world of venture funding, that's actually worth raising money for that.

Speaker 3: 22:53

Other people aren't going to look at your pitch and be like, well, 90 million people do this or, even worse, nobody does this for good reason, because nobody wants this. So that's the first thing. And then the second is to, when you do start to have things, try to build like a little product council. You know the branding of it doesn't really matter, but just try to build a small but mighty group of folks who, again, whether they're paying customers or not, that you can quickly ship things to send out.

Speaker 3: 23:19

You know prototypes they don't have to be fully coded, or you know, fully service oriented, right, like it doesn't matter, they don't have to be to fruition, so to speak, but just a bunch of people you know and it doesn't have to be huge, like call it 10, 15 people who you really like and you like you trust you think they're going to have a wider array of opinions on what you're doing so that you can quickly get more and more narrowed in on what it is you should actually be doing and then, similar to what you said a moment ago. Like, once you do have actual client engagements, whether it's with software or services, make sure you're doing these like retrospectives with them, you know, and that's that's a loaded term for some. So call it what you will, but just make sure that, like, just because somebody's paying you, you don't think, oh man, I made it Right. Right, because that's really only one of the first steps.

Speaker 2: 24:09

Yeah, yeah, and I think those are both, you know, spot on it. We've got to definitely especially early on your, your word, what you say, how you approach it is going to build those relationships, which is going to you going to start to lead into everything else. And then getting all that feedback again from individuals who are within your idea of that product market fit or even outside. Just to narrow in, like with Elevate, it started with just video podcasts. We would launch people's video podcasts, we'd edit them down we still do that but then we started expanding and had through the team and the skills to full video production. So brand story videos, promo videos, um, social media content, which is still kind of our main thing, those, those videos there.

Speaker 2: 24:59

But then we I was like, oh well, this cool, like you know video, the team has skills in real estate and then in weddings, like we can have all that. And I quickly realized like Whoa easy, like you're trying to, you know, tame the whole ocean at once. Uh, instead of getting really good at this one things and you know, just continue to hone in on what you know where we were really, really good at and you know we're spreading ourselves to sense I like take even some products away or you know services away to really just focus on. You know that kind of sweet spot for us which is video, podcasts and the brand story, promo video type things, and so it's like sometimes you have to like do that and we try to do too much at once which can dilute our ability to serve others in a high, high level. So that was something we just recently learned kind of with product market fit and you know what we offered and how to kind of shave some things away yeah, no, I totally hear that.

Speaker 3: 25:56

um, I think the that that's always the tendency right is to be like oh, we've got these people, they're saying they want this, but they're also saying they want these other nine things, and you're like cool, well then I can capture more market, I can capture more revenue from a specific company, like you know the whole land and expand thing, and that's all well and good.

Speaker 2: 26:17

but not in the beginning and in my humble opinion, I agree, you, as it is right, Cause if you spread yourself too thin and you don't have enough manpower, then like for us, uh turnaround time on deliverable decrease or quality increases or whatever, and it's just it.

Speaker 2: 26:32

It's actually hinders your growth by trying to take on too much at once.

Speaker 2: 26:37

And so, and it's funny, you mentioned, like you know, one thing we have found in our industry, and what we provide is the gap that we're trying to build into a little bit is like we'll create these pieces of content, these video pieces, and then, like the client won't post them, but they give great feedback, like we love that, it looks so awesome, like, and so like I've been following up, like so just curious, like we haven't seen those go out, like is everything good with it?

Speaker 2: 27:06

Like oh, that's great. We just we don't have someone to post for us. We always forget to post, like the time thing I was like how can we capture that? Like, we're already doing that. So, like that was kind of the next step we're trying to build out is, you know, we don't only shoot the video, we can also schedule your content to go out on social media, so, again, you don't really have to do anything with it. And so, like, kind of slowly implementing that. So like listening to you know those gaps that clients basically tell you that there are and once you see a excuse me once you see a pattern, build them if you're able.

Speaker 3: 27:40

Yeah, I'm right there with you. I mean, like that's something that we struggle with too is you know, we've started to do a bunch of podcasts. They've been wonderful. I have a particular disdain for social media personally, like I'm only on LinkedIn. Have a particular disdain for social media personally, like I'm only on LinkedIn. It's just, it's just not. It's just not my thing. Um, but I don't feel like it's a prudent use of funds at like this stage of our business, like hire a social media coordinator, right. So it's like I would even I would even want like a middle ground there. It's like if somebody could come in and set up like the social media post scheduling service and then like show me how to do it, I'd be like great, I can take it from here.

Speaker 3: 28:12

Yeah, but very often, like this is this is something we talked about a lot and I think, to go all the way back to one of your earlier questions about like early stage startup stuff, the cold start problem is very real, right, it's like it's just not knowing how to start, yep, and I will say that, at least in my humble opinion, it's just important to start.

Speaker 3: 28:33

It doesn't matter if you're doing it right. That's one thing we talk about a lot and I'm a big believer in the world of early stage business is that people always say fail often, fail frequently. Learn from your failures, which I totally believe in. But I think even more importantly is the concept around minimize the cost of failure. Normalize it culturally within your business. Make sure everybody knows that failure is not a you know capital f like bad word here, right, it's really just like it's an opportunity to learn where you did not do something as effectively as you could have, but that's okay, because you had to learn that somehow and you either could have like sat on your thumbs and vacillated for six weeks while you didn't do something, or you just go out and do it. Um, we have the saying that I I only came across a couple months ago, so I'm sure people have been using it for forever.

Speaker 3: 29:20

But eat the frog oh yeah um, which I just heard, I just learned. I'm like, yes, I love this. Yeah, and like that's like my me and my co-founders biggest thing on our like daily one-on-one is like, get up, what's your frog list, what's my frog list? Like, just do the thing you don't want to do, and not only will you find that like you're relieved, but at the same time it gives you a lot of energy and motivation to do the other stuff that you might enjoy doing. And then you've got this like little chip on your shoulder in a good way. You're like, yeah, cool, I did the hard thing. Um, in fact I was.

Speaker 3: 29:49

You know, I don't I don't watch a lot of like, entrepreneurial, like interviews, but I did come across one from jeff bezos the other day that I really, really liked um, and this was I'll probably botch the quote a tiny bit but essentially he was saying something along the lines of like, this feeling of like, agita and like and stress doesn't come from all the hard things you have to do.

Speaker 3: 30:11

It comes from not taking actions on the thing that you're capable of taking action for. And it's like, again, it's just, you know those moments where you kind of like, feel your synapses connecting, like you feel like this, like like brain expanding moment. I'm like, oh my God, that's it. Just like just go do the thing that you know you can do, even though, even if you don't know how to do it, even if you don't know how to do it, even if you don't think you're going to do it. Well, just like go do it so that you can learn and you can get better and you can check it off your list, knowing you're probably gonna do it again tomorrow. That's fine. But just like believe that you can do things because you can and because nobody else is there to do them, because you're an entrepreneur. So just go do them and ideally, you'll have eaten the frog and you'll feel a lot better about the rest of your day and all the other frogs that will probably pop up.

Speaker 2: 30:54

Right, yeah, and I think that's a great kind of way to kind of wrap up the episode because, yeah, whether it be starting a band, you know, getting on stage, starting bits, you have to eat that frog. You have to overcome that nervousness, that scared feeling of you know what if it doesn't work? Whether they don't like me, what if I? You know it, because you know your first business might not be the one. Uh, mine wasn't, and um, and so I wasn't either yeah, my first two, my first two weren't.

Speaker 2: 31:25

Yeah, so, uh, I love that and uh, this has been day, this has been great conversations. I really appreciate you coming along sharing story, sharing your journey a little bit, you know. Of course, this is just kind of hitting the surface of it all. We get to offer hours and hours on all this, but so I appreciate that. Where can people connect with you, find out more about what you do? I know you said LinkedIn. Is there anywhere else that they can find you?

Speaker 3: 31:49

Yes, they can. They can find me on LinkedIn. Yeah, you can also. Our website is ducky d-u-c-k-y dot a-i and we have contact forms on there. You can always reach us on the website as well as just feel free to shoot me an email directly, James, at ducky dot a-i.

Speaker 2: 32:06

Awesome, cool, yeah, everyone. You connect with James and just learn more about what he's doing. And again, james, thanks so much for being on the Elevate Media podcast today. Thank you, chris, this is really fun. I appreciate you Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 32:18

Thank you for listening to the Elevate Media podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. See you in the next episode.