Jeremy Weisz 3:52
You’re modest. But no, you’re totally right. It doesn’t matter. It’s such a good way to learn to if no one’s listening, and to educate yourself and then you know, your network of people. So I’ve made best friends in the podcasts, going to weddings, going on family vacations with people who knows we’ll probably grab dinner at some point when COVID disappears. I’m sure we’ll we’ll hang out I’m sure that you know, anyway, I can help your son with TheKonaBrand.com, I will help him you know what I mean in my network is oftentimes my guest network. Right? And that’s how it should be. I want to mention to Dave, Peach New Media was something you launched in 2001 sold in 2015. The company at the time was 40 employees, and you receive an offer for a private equity group that you couldn’t refuse. So that’s that story. Thanks for being here. I appreciate it.
Dave Will 4:42
Yeah, well, I appreciate the invitation. There’s there’s I just love talking about this stuff that used to be being an entrepreneur has become part of my identity. You know, it’s one of the top two or three ways I would describe myself If I had to describe myself It is just become who I am the idea of working for somebody at this point is just so far from I can’t even fathom working for somebody, in fact, so much. So I’ve got three teenage boys, so much. So I think I’ve been a little bias in my rearing of the children. Now it to the point Wow. So just push entrepreneurship so hard. I’m like, Look, you can either go bag groceries at the grocery store, or you can figure out a way to make a few bucks selling candy on the beach. You know, it’s like, you could make more money buying candy at target for a buck and selling it on the beach for two bucks over the course of two hours. And you’re hanging out on the on the beach, too. And is it completely legal? Probably not. But you know, who’s gonna get a 15 year old kid and give them a ticket for selling candy on the beach? My point being like, why would you go bag groceries? Why would you go do that when you can make money selling candy on the beach or figure out something else? About 10 minutes, you can probably come up with a cool idea. So yeah, I’m a little jaded in not jaded. But I’m a little bias in my perspective, that there is no better career than being an entrepreneur.
Jeremy Weisz 6:06
There’s one thing I wrote down, Dave, that we’re not gonna discuss now. But we will, before we end is you mentioned working for somebody else. And I was talking to a friend who’s selling his company now. And part of that sale is working for the next company. Right? And so I want to hear it’s tough. Yeah, I want to hear your perspective on that at some point. But I wanted to start with your wall. Okay, if people are watching the video, Dave has a amazing wall behind him with a bunch of stuff. And I want to start off with the cash register. And talk about the story behind the cash register and what that cash register means to you. Alright, so
Dave Will 6:49
you were I just mentioned, I have my grandmother’s cash register, I don’t think you really know much about this, this cash register. Gosh, I wish I could bring my computer over there for a second. I don’t want to unplug it for fear of what that would do to were recording here. But that cash register. So that’s from I want to say it’s from the 50s. And and when I was growing up in in the 70s, in the 80s, my grandmother, mountain Vernon, New York, which is just outside of New York City, not a great town and her husband, she’s a German immigrant. My grandpa was an Italian immigrant, he owned a shoe shop. He died at like, she was young. He died when my mother was in college. And and, you know, my my grandmother didn’t, I don’t think she had any insurance, you had to figure out a way to make a living. So she actually started a health food shop. In what I think it was the late 50s. Wow, did a health food shop and had a little retail store. And that was her cash register from the retail store that sold health food. So I remember as a kid in the 70s before she retired, I’d go in there and I play with a cash register it either gross little honey hard candies, like all these gross health food stuff back in the 70s. It didn’t taste really good. But the best thing in there was like these little honey candies that I would have. I think it was just actually hardened honey, it was all it was. So that cash register to me is a symbol of fortitude. It’s a symbol of a woman in her 40s that went out and started a business. Imagine how that might just imagine everything that immigrant goes through what she came over here. And she’s I think she was 1917 or 19 years old from Germany. And because I think this is right after world war one when all the soldiers came back to Germany, and they they there was there’s just no economy, nothing there for women, no future. So she came to America. And you know, there’s just one thing after another and this was just another journey in our life was starting a store and getting it to the point that gave her a pretty darn healthy retirement. That’s the cash register. They
Jeremy Weisz 9:11
say why they came?
Unknown Speaker 9:13
What’s up?
Jeremy Weisz 9:14
Did they did your grandparents say I’m first of all, I’m sorry to hear about your grandfather at the time. Did they say why they ended up coming here.
Dave Will 9:21
But I never met my grandfather. From what I hear is pretty cool. He’s a you know, an overweight Italian spaghetti loving the cigarette smoking. The Shoemaker. So yeah, I don’t think he really was setting himself up for a long healthy life. Did they say why they came over here? opportunity. That was just opportunity, man. It was like it off. It is today too. But America is the land of opportunity. There’s there’s just so much that can happen here. And there’s so much yeah, so that’s why they came over. There was nothing for them in Italy in Germany in the early mid 1900s
Jeremy Weisz 9:59
Sure. The whole foods have been burning,
Dave Will 10:02
right? Yes, she was it was I can still smell the store, I can see the containers, just such an amazing memory from my childhood. But that cash registers is a strong symbol to me of entrepreneurship and fortitude.
Jeremy Weisz 10:16
I love it. I love health food. So I’m sure like it some people would cringe at it, I would actually enjoy it so much that I have a got a kegerator from my office that has a keg, fourth of a keg of kombucha that comes out of the tap. So I love that stuff. So I’m sure it’s interesting. You said kegerator wasn’t imagine kids like that. Exactly. People are say, Bailey, they get excited. And then they immediately are bummed out and say, like, what do you think? The second thing on your wall I want to talk about is the sign behind you. Talk about the sign if you are looking at the oars. Yeah, that sign Yeah.
Dave Will 10:53
So this sign back here. I just got that for Father’s Day this year. And from from my youngest son who’s 15. And it says, walk slow, smile more. And it’s been a mantra he’s been hearing me preach since he was a baby. And so there’s little history to that it’s it’s kind of Do you mind, if I take us back a little bit, I want you to take me back. You don’t you don’t know this. It’s interesting. You picked these things out to talk about but that that mantra right there walk slow smile more, is a very meaningful value of mine. That’s one of my what I consider to be one of my top three personal core values. I was working for a company called SAP medicine before as an entrepreneur, I was I was in business school at Penn State, I was in between the two years I was an intern. And I went to work at SAP and Boston. That’s where where I was living most of the time, and where I also live now. And I remember on the way out so fast forward now through the end of the internship, and it was fine. It was interesting. I really wanted to work for them one day. And Mark, my, my manager at the time when he walked me out, put his arm around me This is 1996. So he put his arm around me cuz then that you wouldn’t get sued. And there’s no, there’s nothing to worry about putting your arm around somebody, right? So he puts his arm around me walks me out. And I can still picture these double doors. You know, it’s amazing how impactful moments in your life, just stick with it. My grandmother’s health food shop and the smells and the candy. No, this is another similar moment in my life where I can remember the double doors walking out of this big office complex, what I would consider to be it’s like where people go to sit in cubicles to die. You know, it’s like this cubicle. Mountain, it’s a mountain of office buildings, all filled with cubicles anyway. So he’s walking me out this this door, and he says, you know, Dave, nicely done this summer, before I let you go. There’s a bit of advice for you, I want to encourage you, when you’re walking through the halls, I encourage you to walk faster, and smile less, because perception is reality. Like that’s awesome. Like, here I am, I don’t know, 25 or something 2625. And this guy’s giving me some really, really good advice to how to succeed in the corporate world, which is walk faster, smile less, it’s perfect. Because you don’t have to be smart, right? It doesn’t require talent. Anybody can do it, you just have to know to do it. It’s like my kind of thing. You don’t have to just do it. Just smile less, walk faster, and like totally nailed it. Great advice, Mark, thank you. And I go off to a career after Business School. And ultimately, like I get fired three years later, because I just cannot, Jeremy I cannot walk faster and smile less. It just goes against the core, the nature of who I am as a person. And by the way, walk slow. So this became my mantra. And ultimately, I started a business on that one of the core values of this business Peach New Media was walk slow, smile more. But something I want to emphasize. Walking slow doesn’t mean literally walk slow and be careless. Don’t care about stuff. Quite the contrary, actually, walk slow means walking slow enough so that you’re actually enjoying the journey. Walking slow is about smelling the flowers along the way, because I’m a true believer that if you don’t enjoy the process, if you don’t enjoy the journey, there is no end. The end that we all picture off in the horizon just doesn’t happen. Or if it does, you’re miserable on the way there and you’re probably going to be miserable at the end because you’ve trained yourself to be miserable. So walk slow, smile more, man. It’s all about enjoying the journey and enjoying life because that way the destination just doesn’t matter as much. That is so cheesy. I didn’t realize how cheesy that sounded until I actually heard myself I’ll say it. But I’m telling you right now, I believe in that I’ve taught my kids to believe in that. And my son gave me that sign for Father’s Day this year. So that’s the impact it’s had on him.
Jeremy Weisz 15:01
I love that I’m still working on that. Dave, I need to just enjoy the journey more as opposed to the the outcome.
Dave Will 15:18
We all do. But don’t get me wrong, we also get wrapped up in things and like I think about right now with PropFuel. I think about selling the business. Don’t get me wrong. Like, I don’t want to come off as holier than now it’s like, I still think about selling the business. And I have to remind myself, like, very, very clearly, I have to remind myself what I’m explaining in story. This is gonna be a long podcast, man. So I remember driving, there’s no such thing. Well, you know, they’re saying Same thing with copywriting. Like,
Jeremy Weisz 15:52
there’s no such thing as long or short. It’s just boring. Copy. Right, sorry, this will be a great podcast. Okay.
Dave Will 16:00
Thank you for that. I remember driving with my wife into Boston, midday, I don’t know what it’s for. I don’t know if we’re going to an event or is like maybe a lunch or maybe we’re just I really don’t remember, doesn’t matter. The point being I was driving into Boston in the middle of the day. We’re in our fun car. It’s you know, what we were in our Tesla, right. So we’re driving a Tesla into Boston, which and I say that for a reason. Not not. It’s not like I drove a Tesla, which I do, by the way, it’s freaking awesome. Love that car. But we’re driving into Boston in this Tesla, and I’m sitting here, behind the wheel, hands on my lap, because it’s driving us itself, right. And I’m painting this picture on purpose like this. And I I’m thinking quietly think I’m not saying to her, I’m thinking, dammit, I really, you know, I thought PropFuel would be further along. You know, I wonder, you know, if I could sell the business today, what would I sell it for? And you know, I’m processing like, why haven’t we made it further yet? And then, like, a ton of bricks hits me. What would I do if I sold it today? Like, what would it mean to me? If I sold this? Let’s just say sold over $100 million. Right? By the way, it’s not worth $100 million. Let’s just say sold for $100 million today and outrageous amount of money. What a what impact would that have on our lives financially? It’s insignificant, I’m get a bigger boat. Like me a bigger house. I don’t like our house is fine. We have a boat and that’s fine. We have a fun car. That’s fine. Like, we’re paying for college. Like my finances are fine. So sell having 100 million in the bank isn’t going to do much more for me. Right.
Jeremy Weisz 17:39
It’s a good exercise to go through. But yeah, keep going.
Dave Will 17:42
I know so. So we get the so the money thing. It’s like it’s not for the money. Right? So then, what’s the next thing? Okay, so I wake up tomorrow. So my business today 100 million dollars, like a stupid amount of money, right? What many of us would call ftu? Money right? So we got this f you money in the bank? Now? What do we do tomorrow? assuming we’re not working for the company? What do we do tomorrow? Nothing and there’s not enough shows on Netflix. to film my days, there’s nor do I have the ability to watch that much. So what I do now I could come up with cool things. But the fact is, kind of diging building PropFuel. So like, why am I in such a rush to sell it? I got it, you know, so I have to remind myself every now and then, wait a minute, stop. you’re digging this you’re enjoying it. Don’t jump to the finish line. Don’t skip all the middle chapters of the book just to read the last chapter like this is fun. This is the best part. Zuckerberg said once when he was offered $775 million from the guy at Yahoo. I forgot his name. Isn’t that funny? Nobody knows the Yahoo guy. But we all know Zuckerberg. So Zuckerberg was offered $775 million. And he said No, I’m good. So the Yahoo guy comes back he’s like, Okay, give you a billion. Like this is all true story comes back says I’ll give you a billion Facebook. Zach’s like, Oh, man. And so his team says to them, Zack, maybe we ought to take this seriously. Like, maybe we ought to consider this as Zach’s like why? So I can go out and start another social network. Because I kind of dig the one we have now translated my own words, of course, but basically sucks. Like, I’m kind of enjoying doing this. I don’t want to sell it. Even for a billion dollars.
Jeremy Weisz 19:40
You know, it’s it’s a good exercise to go through. If you have a company if you don’t have a company. I mean, you could go through this exercise mentally by going out. You know, for instance, Dave, you go out, someone goes out, they go buy a $1 lottery ticket. And and what that makes you think about is not that you’re gonna win the lottery, but what would you do differently in your life? Right, if you got all that money, what would you do differently? And then why not just do it now? Right? If you’re going to Oh, well, I don’t like to work for a different company. Well, maybe I should start with a different company now. Right. Great question. That’s, that’s how I see that. And that kind of goes into so when you sold the company? What did you do? Like before you saw that? What did you think you were going to do? And then what happened? Oh,
Dave Will 20:27
my God, that’s a great question. By the way, going back to your life, I’m gonna answer that in a second. Um, I have a friend. His name is Joe Polish I belong to He’s like, kind of one of these.
Jeremy Weisz 20:39
I know, Joe polish. Yeah, you do.
Dave Will 20:41
So he has this group called Genius Network, and I belong to it for a little while. And but he has this philosophy, very modest name is a Genius Network. I belong to Genius Network, it’s not really difficult to get into just write a check. So I, but anyway, he has this philosophy that I don’t have a philosophy, but a kind of a way of thinking about things. It’s like, so what would you sell a finger for? Would you sell an arm for? What about your ability to walk? And he’s like, okay, so all of those things have a value to them? Or maybe they’re priceless. So why is it that we feel so poor? If we don’t have money in the bank? Like we got all those things that are so valuable to us all the way down to a thumb, right? Like, what would you take for a thumb? Like, I don’t think there’s any money on the planet that I’d be willing to give up a thumb for. I mean, that’s one of the only things that differentiates me from a monkey, right. I think,
Jeremy Weisz 21:41
like maybe a pinky or not.
Dave Will 21:42
So I just thought that’s an interesting perspective. We’ll put you on here. So funny.
Jeremy Weisz 21:47
Yeah, go ahead.
Dave Will 21:48
Here’s something funny. When I, when I sold it, when in the months leading up to selling Peach New Media back in 20. So this 2014 I sold it in February 2015. So late 2014. I’m so late 2014. I sorry, our little hiccup with the speakers there. I think I got this now, though. So late 2014. I’m thinking about, gosh, there’s about to be a significant sum of money coming into the Will family. And it was, you know, it wasn’t 100%. But it was enough, likely, there was enough likelihood. So that he started daydreaming, right, it started dreaming about Okay, what are we gonna do? Like, what does this mean? Like? What’s it going to feel like? Jeremy, would you believe? I actually thought that I would no longer get stressed out in traffic. Like, I really thought, honestly, I thought like this was gonna solve.
Jeremy Weisz 22:57
It’s like you at the kegerator. That was not what I was expecting you to say, Oh, my God, and I thought
Dave Will 23:01
I’d be driving in traffic, it’d be like, I have nothing to worry about, like, Who gives a shit about anything else? Because now, like, we’re good. Like, there’s nothing to worry about. You’re so stupid, because the money hits the bank, nothing changes. Now, that’s not completely true, a little bit changes. But from a perspective of life, and certainly from a happiness perspective, nothing changes.
Jeremy Weisz 23:28
I can see that that mindset of like, I’m going to be less stressed. I could totally see that. Yeah.
Dave Will 23:32
There’s there’s a marginal amount of reduction of stress, your marginal. But my understanding is, that’s the same is true. If you go from if you’re making just a decent living, the stress of finances generally goes away. There
Jeremy Weisz 23:55
is some entry Yeah, there is something that I forgot what the number is, it’s like if someone made an extra $75,000 a year after that, there is no measurable difference in their happiness. There’s some I know there is someone can look this up. There is some amount of money they’ve done research on, if you make, you know, X amount over that amount. There’s not like a huge measure of habit, which is, you know, you’re thinking about it, it’s still hard to believe actually, like, okay, I hand you 100 million, like, you’re not any happier, that just still seems crazy, right? Even
Dave Will 24:30
with $100 million, you know, this does seem crazy, even with $100 million, there’s still a significant amount of financial stress, which it’s, you can’t explain it, that it’s just think it’s baked into us. You know, I remember the day after I sold, I sold the company, I was driving up we live in northeast I was driving up to go skiing with some friends in New Hampshire. And I remember checking my Vanguard account over and over and over and over and over on my phone as safely as I possibly could while I was driving. And and and we About his Valentine’s Day is like the next day. I remember we went to this, like this place on the ski resort. And I saw this really cool flannel shirt that was incredibly overpriced. But it was like 90 bucks. Like, to me, that was a ridiculous amount of money for a shirt. I was like, I’m not gonna pay $90 per shirt. And meantime, the deposit was just made for selling the business into our bank account. My wife, I remember my wife came up to me, she looked at me and just shook her head and grabbed the shirt and put it on the counter. So I ended up getting a shirt, but now every time we put on that shirt, I think of that moment where I’m like, even after getting that paycheck, I still didn’t want to spend $90 on a shirt. Yeah, so yeah, and not much changes. You know, it’s, I will say, a significant stress reduction is paying for college like then done like such a nice like, mentally just to get it out of the way. So that was a really nice thing. The flannel shirt is a question again, flannel
Jeremy Weisz 26:02
shirts, a good segue to peel a child TheKonaBrand.com. If you want a Hawaiian way. What is what is
Dave Will 26:10
it a business, which is really, really fun. It started as a fun exercise. He had the idea in high school, but his thought was like you can see I’m wearing a flannel shirt right now traditional browns and it’s plaids. And it’s good. It’s fine. It’s fine. You know, it’s fine flannel shirt, but he’s like, dead. Why can’t we put like flowers or surfboards or palm trees on on a warm long sleeve shirt. And I was like, dude, I’d buy one. So that is the beginning is so he’s in the process now of procuring those shirts, he’s got the designs done, the designs are really really cool. He starting really simple flowers and a Nantucket red shirt and a blue in the dark blue. So he started with some cool shirts. In the meantime, he’s got some cool Kona brand hats. every purchase goes to red helping rescue dogs. So his his mission is to basically save every red, find a home for every dog, that’s what always find a home for every dog. And so he’s he has this idea of the shirts called the Kona brand. That’s the name of the website though Kona brand calm. And the idea is like you put on one of these shirts, and it just gives you puts a smile on your face. That’s his philosophies. Like just it’s an article of clothing can make you smile. This is the one.
Jeremy Weisz 27:29
So the about selling the company and what you thought. And I want to transition to your staying on the company, right? You said like it’s hard for an entrepreneur to work for someone else talk about that transition from you sell the company. And now you’re working for the company.
Dave Will 27:47
Yes, a KKR. XL, a KKR bought the private equity firm that bought my company, peach new media, we were a bolt on to another software company, bigger software company. And I, so I remember going to work for them. And immediately it was put on the executive team for this other company and I was going to work for him I had a contract for a year. Then after that, we can see what happens. But the idea is like I’m bound to work for them for a year. And I remember sitting on the deck, I want to say like six months into this, I was on the I don’t even know what I did. Like I have zero memory of that first six months, I think it was just all transitions stuff. And it was fine. It was interesting. It was fun to transition of business and make sure nobody was panicking. And very, very, I don’t think anybody was let go, we might have let go. maybe one or two people related to finance and HR kind of thing. But so this was I. So six months in I’m sitting on the executive team meeting, we’re on this little one day retreat. And the CEO mentioned, mentioned the company values. And I suffered was like, I’m so embarrassed. But can you remind me like what are our values? like six months in the exam? What can you just remind What are values? And she looked at me with such disdain and disappointment. I was so embarrassed not to know our values, just like you don’t know our values kind of thing. And I was like, I’m really sorry, I don’t what are they? And then she’s, I think she said them, but then somebody else then God spoke. I was like, Krista, I’m sorry. I you know, I don’t really know the values either. And all of a sudden it sparked this conversation about how this company had bought so many businesses brought them all together that the values were no longer clear. And so it turned into another hour or two of talking about, you know, what, what are we weak at? What are we good at. So when the group came back together, after this, the sticky notes everywhere, group came back together and determined that, okay, what we were going to do is block off some time and lock ourselves in a room come up with our company values next weekend. And I pushed back again, I was a troublemaker that sort of was honestly like, here’s a company private equity, they want to focus on the money, get it in just Move, move, move, which is cool. But being an entrepreneur walk fast. Yes, they wanted to walk fast really, really fast. And, and so I was like, wait a minute. If we just go in a closet and do this again, in six months from now, we’re going to be wondering what our values are, again, if we want to do this, right, we need to bring the employees into it. And I don’t mean to sound all righteous. I mean, I don’t know, the greatest process, but I do know a better process. And in a nutshell, I was told look, we’re going to do it next weekend, appreciate where we don’t have six months to spend on creating our values, like that was the value. That was the value put on a company values, like we did stop six months dedicate to something like this. So that’s the moment I knew I was done. And I remember calling her and, and saying, Hey, listen, I think we’re seven or eight months in at this point. It’s like, Listen, I don’t want to give up the the end of your bonus. But I’m happy to get out of your hair. If you if you give me my end of your bonus. Like if you don’t require me to stay around a year. I don’t need to be here. And she’s like, considered done. So is that getting fired? I don’t think so. I think I quit.
Unknown Speaker 31:41
So just a one advice.
Dave Will 31:43
By the way, she said, Yeah, let’s let’s kind of make it a smooth transition over the next month to six weeks. And so I was there for another month or two. And but ultimately, it was very smooth transition. But I just couldn’t see eye to eye I was I was definitely becoming a troublemaker in the group. I was not helping anymore. Yeah.
Jeremy Weisz 32:03
What do you have any any particular advice for a founder, in all situations are totally different, right? who acquires who’s you know who you’re working with? and advice from a founder who, you know, maybe they’re going to work for the new company for a year, two years, three years, four years?
Dave Will 32:27
Any advice? I think there’s just so many different situations. Like I think there’s a lot of people that actually look forward to working in taking their baby, and bringing it through the next stage next stage being worked for a company. So I don’t think every situation is like mine. I think there are a lot of situations like mine. Do I don’t forgive me? I don’t think I have any advice. Because again, I think everything’s so, so different. What I will say is in the acquisition process, right, when you’re looking at who to sell to like, if you’ve made a decision that you’re in selling, you have a few different lined up. That was in our scenario. In fact, we were cranking along expecting to stay who we were, we were a they came to us asking just happened. We had two private equity companies come to us at the same time. So that worked out nicely because we kind of pitched them off each other. But what I would say is we we oftentimes think so much about whether or not we’re a good culture fit into the other company. I’d say don’t overthink that that might be my advice is you think you can see it, you think you might be able to figure out if it’s a good culture fit. The reality is, even if you think it’s a great culture fit, it’s going to be tough as hell they get is really, really hard to bring companies together, there will be change. And if you’re not comfortable with that, figure out a way to get out of it because there will be change, no matter what they say.
Jeremy Weisz 34:12
Yeah. So Dave, we go from you’re selling, you’re thinking about selling now you transition when you transition, and you’re like, cool, now what am I gonna do?
Dave Will 34:23
Oh, I watch the Godfather, the Godfather. That’s the first thing I did nine hours.
Unknown Speaker 34:28
Oh, man.
Dave Will 34:29
Yeah, it took me like three weeks because I just really had a hard time sitting down for nine hours straight but I took three weeks and I watch the Godfather. The other thing I was going to do is going to clean out my basement. And I’m still going to get to that. I haven’t done it yet, but I’m gonna get to that one of these days. You
Jeremy Weisz 34:45
know, we hire third question. We hired an organizer like cuz my wife threatened to me if I didn’t clean out the office area. So we actually hired an organizer, a professional organizer. They came in and spent a whole Sunday with me and organize and clean the entire office. So how they’re really Oh, yeah.
Dave Will 35:06
What was that really?
Unknown Speaker 35:08
David Oh,
Unknown Speaker 35:09
book,
Jeremy Weisz 35:10
David Allen.
Dave Will 35:12
Getting things done David Allen. There’s another one. The the subtle art of have tidying up or something like that. And basically,it’s about going out of your basement attacking your basement and just getting rid of everything. That’s a subtle art, by the way.
Jeremy Weisz 35:32
Yes. So there you go. You just just hire an organizer?
Unknown Speaker 35:35
Yeah.
Jeremy Weisz 35:36
make that happen.
Dave Will 35:36
I don’t know if I let you ask your question. There was a question in there somewhere. So I don’t
Jeremy Weisz 35:40
even remember what it was. No, it was, um, what was the What were you thinking was next? Were you going to give yourself some time to relax? Were you on your next thing? Yeah, well,
Dave Will 35:49
what I wish I did was just took a year and did nothing. But that’s really hard, because you kind of feel like, if you like, you’re gonna miss something like it. There’s a huge fear of missing out. Like, it’s really, really hard to take a year, but I really wish I forced myself to take a year and just explore just even with kids in school, you can’t just pick up and go to Europe, right? But just let my mind explore. And instead, what I did is I said yes to everything I could, like board member of local organizations, did more with the Boy Scouts, which I’m heavily involved in. I just did everything I could. And I found myself running around like a chicken with my head cut off purposeless. Like I didn’t have one thing I was working on. I just was working on all these tick a bunch of little things. And I was busy, busy, busy busy every day. And what was I doing? Jeremy? I have no idea. Like, I’ve no idea. So maybe that’s
Jeremy Weisz 36:48
exactly what you needed at the time. You know,
Dave Will 36:51
I don’t know, I look back and I don’t feel like that’s what I needed. It didn’t feel good. I was, you know, I did all sudden my calendar emptied. And I filled it with just shit. Like everything I could put into it. It just filled it with that. Can I swear on this? Sure. All right, because I already have a few times. I’ll stop, I will consciously put a filter on if I have to. But I just filled, right, I filled this calendar bucket with stuff just because it was empty. And it’s not supposed to be so I filled it. I wish I could go back in time. In fact, I have to do a do over sometime when I sell PropFuel, my next step will actually be to shut down take a year say no. Because Do you remember when we were kids, not you and me together. But generally speaking as kids, we would get bored. And what happens when you get bored as a kid? do crazy things like you might be bored for a few minutes. And then all of a sudden there’s a box in the corner. Next thing you know you’re on a spaceship flying out to Mars, right? It’s like, your mind just finds ways to fill the void with creative interesting things. And I didn’t let myself do that. But um, that that’s what I did wrong. What I did right was over and I kind of lost track of time, but over time, I would have an idea. And I pursue it for a month asking questions talking to people. And, and then I’d let it go. Because oftentimes, these ideas I’d run into a wall and be like, Okay, do I care enough about this to want to, like break through that wall? Or not? And I didn’t for all of them. And then in every time I went to my current partner Cameron, who is my CTO at my last company, at Peach. I go Hey, camera, got another idea. What do you think about this, like, a website or a platform to to find jobs for interns? I was one of them. Hey, Cam, what about this one, a swag company site with focusing on birthdays. He’s like, Oh, my God. He just went back to work. He had a job as I so I went to him like five more ideas like this every time is like, just go back to a Godfather. And so finally he came to me with one idea. I was like I’m in. That’s great. So the point is, the idea didn’t really matter. Much all that mattered is I had Cameron with me, my my, my right hand man, my partner that built PropFuel with our current company. He started as his idea. Here’s the funny thing. When you start something I wonder how many people listening have had this experience. But when you start a business, and this was true of my first company to when you start a business, the idea doesn’t matter. Because it’s going to morph and change so much to the market demand like you might start with something. But then for us, you know, every three months, we pivoted another 15 degrees, until finally we’re just pointing in completely different direction like what we are today is not at all what we were four years ago when we started. So anyway, that’s my little diatribe on I like you after.
Jeremy Weisz 40:01
I want to talk about that for a second morphing because one of my favorite parts of your journey, Dave is how Walmart plays a role.
Dave Will 40:10
How did you know that?
Jeremy Weisz 40:12
I do my research.
Dave Will 40:14
That’s crazy. Like I know that’s pretty good. My dog does my research and my podcast has never gone that deep was that goes way, way back then like, That’s impressive. I wonder where that is? I do remember. Well, anyway, we don’t need to go there. But yeah, it was. Yeah, going.
Jeremy Weisz 40:31
No, no, I just want you to tell the story. Because you discovered I mean, that that kind of I think led you to a certain niche. Yeah, totally. Totally Peach New Media.
Dave Will 40:41
Yeah, that my God, that’s, that’s awesome that you’ve he found that. So by the way, you’re giving me too much credit. I didn’t discover Walmart, my partner at the time, my first company. So I started with another guy named Rick. And he was a mentor and a friend. And that was my first company, which is the early early days of Peach and is basically just a web conferencing reselling company like we did, it wasn’t called peach. It’s, it’s called Boston Conferencing. And everybody’s like, why you work outside of Boston. I was like, I know. But it’s like Boston Consulting Group. It’s like huge.
Jeremy Weisz 41:19
So it does have a ring to it.
Dave Will 41:22
So we were pretty big on consumer goods, like that was our niche. And we were selling web conferencing to tired old sales executives. That was like our segment that was our market. And just to help them this is in the early 2000s, to help them get into like the the new way of communicating with their sales teams around the country. And our first company, our first customer solo cup company, just give you perspective. And so we worked with the sales and marketing team inside solo cup are huge. Yeah. And they sell stuff at Walmart, as do many of the other companies that we started working with. And so find my partner said, hey, there’s this thing called Retail Link, which is Walmart software. And there’s like 60,000 manufacturers that use Retail Link, and they have these user groups all over the country. Do you want to host one of these things for free, just do it on your, you know, using your platform, just because otherwise, people have to drive into Boston, this is just a local Boston, people have to drive into Boston. And nobody ever goes. It’s like, we have three or four people in our user group meetings. Nobody feels like spending the day driving and parking in Boston. I mean, it was is basically like, virtual back in 2002. And then, so is that Yeah, sure. I mean, at first, I was kind of annoyed. I’m like, I’ve got to do another thing for free. But Alright, fine. So I ended up doing the same 90 people showed up to this user group meeting. It was a smash, like, killed it. So in no time at all, we started doing the word got out, we started doing these retail and user group meetings all across the country. And at this point, we’d figured out a business model where we just charged people, I think I forgot exactly, but let’s just say it was like 25 bucks for a session. So instead of paying parking, they pay us 25 bucks. And then they wouldn’t even have to drive to 25 bucks to get into a user group. They paid us directly. We built websites, to access the recordings and the meetings and all that stuff basically became a learning management system that we had built. It was a one off specifically for the retailing User Group, which is the Walmart community of manufacturers. What we discovered is that we and this is what I’m talking about morphing. But we had discovered as we had created a learning site. We didn’t know the word learning management system. We didn’t know what that was. I don’t even know if that was a thing. It
Jeremy Weisz 43:47
was Yeah. What the internet at that point? Well, I mean, just keep your perspective of what was popular on the Internet at that time. Like, that’s a good question. I don’t I space. I mean, I don’t even know,
Dave Will 43:59
I guess. So Facebook wasn’t around. And Apple really wasn’t doing anything on the Internet at that point. I don’t think other than like, they had iTunes, but that wasn’t even the internet. I mean, WordPress didn’t exist. I mean, right. I mean, yeah, it’s really interesting. I don’t think the concept of learning management systems existed. Now, I could be wrong there. Maybe it was in the early days. So we had kind of stumbled into this concept of hosting and distributing educational content from a website. And we also had stumbled into this idea of a community of people all focused on a similar cause otherwise known as an association. So what we had realized is that the retail user group was actually an Association of Manufacturers focused on the retailing software. And so we just we applied that concept and went to the what’s called the American Society of association executives was the Association of associations and we figured we go By booth there and just see, you know, what do we have here. And so we started selling this concept of, Hey, we could build a website where you could host educational content. You want us to do that for you. At this point, people are shipping out tapes and CDs. That’s what associations were doing at the time, you’re like, yeah, we’d love to put all our stuff on the internet and let people access it. And, and so we ultimately figured out how to do that much better over time, and set up these sites much faster. We rebranded as Peach New Media, and voila, that over the course of just well, over 14 year, boom, yeah.
Jeremy Weisz 45:38
overnight success, 10 years.
Unknown Speaker 45:41
14 years later, we sold it.
Jeremy Weisz 45:45
You know, what I love about when you about this is that you really found this community, this larger community, right, in this case, retail link, and you solve the pain points in them. Right. Um, and, you know, that’s what you did, you went on to solve a pain point for this community. And in the same, you kind of stumbled upon solving that pain point for other communities.
Dave Will 46:07
Right, yes. Yeah. You know, now, so yes, I mean, instead of community, the word we were chasing down, because we had really changed our focus at this point, to focus on associations or, or probably more accurately, accurately, member based organizations. That’s kind of what an association is as a member based organization.
Jeremy Weisz 46:29
So Dave, PropFuel, original idea, versus now, because you said it, it even has morphed a few times.
Dave Will 46:36
So Originally, it was a recognition platform, like good job, props, PropFuel, you know, Hey, good job. And it was just a way for employees to give each other Pat in the back, that was a 25 bucks a month. And we had a bit of a beta with a whole bunch of friends and their businesses using it. So that was the original idea. It did not work out. So well, we and we discovered that pretty quickly, we’re pretty agile, in terms of creating a test, putting it out there, see if anybody bid, nobody really bit. So ultimately, we still do some of that. But ultimately, it turned into I mean, I’m going to fast forward, I’m not going to take you through the journey of how we got to where we are. But ultimately, we found our way back to working with associations, primarily, we’re working memory based organizations, but it works we actually have a fair number of our original corporate customers as well. It’s a conversational engagement platform. And what that means is, it’s a way of connecting with large groups of people at the individual level. So we all know, our customer base, we all know, our, in the case of associations, their members, 30,000 members, maybe for typical Association, they know what their membership as a whole needs. Right? They know that if you could send out a survey and find out what percentage of your members need this and that what they don’t know, is what Jeremy needs. Not only that, but what does Jeremy need right now. And that’s a PropFuelthis PropFuel through a conversational engagement. We have this process, ask capture act. So it’s like a marketing platform marketing automation platform that sends out emails with a question in it. People answer the question, based on how they answer the question, this is the beauty of PropFuel is what happens after people answer a question. All of these actions come to life. And so you have all these workflows that it’s like, it’s like lighting a lighting a firecracker. Yeah, the light is the question. The wick is the person’s answer. And then as soon as that wick comes, it explodes with actions. And the actions are show people landing page, write data back to the database, send them an email. Yeah, there’s tag them in the database. There’s all kinds of things that might happen after somebody answers a question. But here’s the beauty. Now we know something about them. And we can give them a relevant message you specifically we can give you specifically irrelevant message. And then that starts a dialogue back and forth between the individual and the organization. So now, rather than organization talking to personas, organizations are talking to people, actual people. And that’s what PropFuel does. papule is allows you to create these one to one connections with people at scale. It’s awesome. It’s like it’s just awesome. There’s no other platform that I’m aware of that does this kind of thing. So people say Who are your competitors, like Well, I guess kind of HubSpot, but we’re more complimentary. You’re not going to get rid of HubSpot. You’re just going to tack us on to use as a way to create a different connection with members you still need to broadcast shit out there. Like he’s still gonna send stuff. So anyway, that’s my long winded messages to wonder. value proposition
Jeremy Weisz 50:00
is it’s not only here, Dave, your favorite example. But before I do, like, it’s funny, because when I look at Peach New Media, I’m curious if anyone told you this when you started PropFuel, when you look at patient, Amelia, and now you’re doing properly, it makes perfect sense to me like, oh, they’re a software platform that helps associations, you know, connect the dots or whatever. I wondered if you would have cut, if you went to some of the time go, we want to help, you know, recognition. And like, maybe you were helping recognition for associations, or were you helping recognition for associations remember a software? It just seems so obvious when I know, researched your website? Now? It’s like, Yeah, that makes perfect sense. What he came from there, and now he’s kind of knows I know. You don’t I mean,
Dave Will 50:51
we were smoking something. And we just decided to go, honestly, I thought, I think we’re kind of burned out on the industry. And we’re like, let’s just do some different. Yeah, I think that’s what happened. And we tried something different. We’re like, we don’t know what we’re doing over here. Can we just maybe we should just go back to what we know. Well, let’s, let’s go back to what we know. We know the people we know the problems. We know the industry. In hindsight, it was foolish to go off and try something just completely different. Like we might as well just started a winery.
Jeremy Weisz 51:21
I mean, when you said, Oh, this more popular more of those thinking. This seems like it would have been the idea from the beginning. But it just proves, no matter if you’ve started a company before you haven’t, it’s going to morph regardless of how much experience you have doing this. What is one of your favorite examples of a company using PropFuel?
Dave Will 51:43
Oh, gosh, there’s so many here’s, here’s one, I think is really easy to understand. And because I think this applies both to companies, organizations, and and associations as well, as Association brings on it and there’s like a whole bunch of different use cases, from member acquisition to, to to losing customers or losing members of an organization and trying to win them back. And the best way to do that is to ask them a question to get some context what’s going on here. And then based on what you learn, now you can really have a connected conversation, a relevant message with them. But here’s a good example. Like somebody joins an association, or somebody joins your company, either as an employee or as a maybe a customer. So I’m trying to make this broad. With an association, what will happen is you join an association like the national is let’s just say you’re into Matchbox cars, National Association of vintage Matchbox cars, there’s an association for Association for everything on lievable, how many it does, so that the National Association of Mac’s, matchbox car vendors or something like that, so you decide to join that association? what they will do in most cases, we send you an email, with a ton of things that they’re doing their conference, or webinars, their educational events, their their exchange, where you can sell Matchbox cars, everything in that community where you can talk about your matchbox car, everything. And they’re going to dump it like a dump truck into your lap, and maybe eat it up. Maybe you don’t, maybe you have the filter to go through and figure out what’s interesting, what isn’t what we’ll do with one of these organizations, instead of dumping this into your lap. We’re going to send a question to you that says, hey, we’re so glad you joined the matchbox Association. But before we go any further tell us why did you join? And then it might have some multiple choice, because remember, I told you associations know their membership. So they could tell you like the top five reasons. What they want to know is Jeremy, why did you join? Because based on why you joined, that’s going to impact our next conversation or the next element of this conversation. Oh, you joined because you have a whole bunch of Matchbox cars you want to offload on check out our matchbox exchange. Oh, you join because you’re looking to acquire match by Oh, you join because you’re looking to clean up your match by I don’t know. So based on how you answer, you give them the right. Next step. And so what we’ll do is over the course of the members first year, the customers first period of time, you send them questions on a weekly or monthly basis or periodically over the course of the year to make sure that they’re actually getting involved in doing what they should in the first year. So you’ve got them locked in for life. So that’s an example of how organizations are using PropFuel it’s ask, capture act. It’s asking questions, capturing context and taking action on it. You
Jeremy Weisz 54:55
know, I love it because you could tailor their experience and they have a better experience because you’re tailoring and giving them exactly what they want as opposed to just kind of shotgun approach and throwing everything at them. And like you say, you probably build out the, you know, they build out these email treater decision trees like okay, the answer this, they already kind of know where to point people, they already have the resources. So,
Dave Will 55:16
you know, marketing today is done on clicks and opens, you know, we’re looking at transactional behavioral data to try to predict the future, or we’re trying to predict what they want. And there’s some value to that I’m not, I’m not putting that down. There’s, there’s real value to that. But wouldn’t there be some value to just saying, hey, Jeremy, what do you want? You know, like, here’s an here’s an example. And then I’m going to stop talking about this, because I don’t want to be dead horse here. You walk to the walk into the doctor’s office, the the receptionist gives you a piece of paper, usually you fill out this form, you know, do you ever remember those pictures of the human body? Where does it hurt? And you’re like, X ray, hear my hip hurts? Because I’m 50. And so you need certain level of pain? Eight. So you’re kind of filling out the data, right? That’s the data. We have all this data about people. And they then you walk in, they take your blood pressure. And they I don’t know what else they do. But there are so a way you thank Yes. So they’re getting all this data. But then the doctor walks in, he’s looking at his clipboard, he’s looking at the data, it’s important. What’s the first thing he says to you?
Jeremy Weisz 56:24
Tell me what’s going on with you?
Dave Will 56:25
How you feel? What’s going on? Why are you here? Like it’s contextual. So now he’s starting a conversation with you. Because what matters as much, if not more than that data? Is what you say to him next. Well, Doc, my back’s been killing me. Or doc is weird. snapping is happening. When I walk, something’s going on in my hyper Doc, I get this lump. You know, like stuff like that matters a hell of a lot more than your heart rate. Anyway, so that’s that’s PropFuel does. We are that doctor that walks in and asks a question.
Jeremy Weisz 57:00
I want to hear Dave about one of the most obscure business associations that you’ve heard of. But you know, you’re speaking my language. You know, my background is as a chiropractic. My background is in biochemistry as a chiropractor. So I totally, you know, you people thought a laundry list of things. But when you ask them, what’s what’s going on, it sometime has nothing to do with their they filled out the form, right? They go, I’ve had seven surgeries. And this man, I’m like, Whoa, and they’re like, actually have headaches. I’m like, okay, you know, so you just, you don’t know what’s going on with someone that day, even looking at past history, right? So are there just to give people an idea of all the different like you mentioned the match back this year. What other obscure associations just blew your mind even though that you are, you know, just an expert, probably at this point of all the various associations out there?
Dave Will 57:58
Well, either one, I vaguely remember this one here is the international fainting goat Association. But in looking for that, because I couldn’t quite remember the name. I typed in goat Association. And it’s stunning how many goat associations are a national pygmy goat Association, Nigerian Dwarf Goat Association, Spanish goat Association, Pakistan. I mean, that’s just goat associations, and those are interred. Oh, here’s one Iowa Meat Goat Association. That’s an unfortunate one. But I can tell you some of the more normal associations are still quite obscure. I mean, the number of hospice associations is really really interesting. In one of our clients is a Coin laundry Association. They it’s an association of laundromats basically. You have what’s what’s another one the contemporary ccsa, contemporary ceramic Society of America ccsa, contemporary ceramic ceramic society, Americans, these little ceramic stores. And then of course, you have some of the more popular ones like all the bar associations, or every state has a Bar Association, national Bar Association, there’s the State Teachers associations, every state has their own Teachers Association. We work with the Air Force Association you know, obviously a big one so there’s there’s some that are very obscure and fun to come up with like the matchbox one. I really don’t know if there’s a matchbox Association.
Jeremy Weisz 59:32
They’re probably if there’s that many goat associations Dave I’m gonna guess there’s a matchbox Association there has to be the I’m looking right now.
Dave Will 59:39
Yeah. actually Bay Area Matchbox Collectors Association. You go National Association of matchbox collectors. matchboxes Association. Now that’s a different one. Anyway, that isn’t that funny.
Jeremy Weisz 59:52
It’s crazy. Yeah, you know, Dave I have one last question? First of all, thank you. Thanks for sharing the journey. Thanks for this
Dave Will 59:57
is a party advice. Don’t ever turn down the opportunity to talk about their story and they’re talking about themselves. Oh, my God, it’s like the best date ever.
Jeremy Weisz 1:00:10
That’s a new quote on my website, the best date ever. Before ask the last question, I want to point people towards PropFuel.Com. Check it out, you know, if you do, like you were mentioning today, there’s so much you could learn that I don’t care if you’re you’re an association or you’re a business, even people should check out the site just to see what you’ve created. And especially if you are an association, obviously check out what PropFuel is doing. Because, you know, going through their value proposition and just clear who they’re serving is clear, the problem they’re serving is clear. You go to the services, you know, the different services they offer, you know, provide a value in a pain point for member based, you know, associations. So check it out, check out what they’re doing.
Dave Will 1:00:57
Thank you, if we do work with some, I mean, really our target audience is the niche. It’s it’s the associations, but we do work with some corporations in the methodology of ask capture act is universal. I mean, it works in just about every situation. You know why? Because it’s how humans interact. You go to a cocktail party, you ask a question, you capture your Listen, right? And then you take action on it, it’s an exchange, and all we’ve done is turn that exchange the conversation into a process,
Jeremy Weisz 1:01:27
you know, so check out PropFuel.comm check out other episodes of inspired insider COMM And check out rise 20 five.com last question, Dave, I have to ask this question, because you mentioned it in the very beginning before we started recording. And, you know, one of the most powerful things is curiosity. So I need to close the loop.
Dave Will 1:01:47
I’m so curious. Oh is gonna be like I’m dying to know what you’re going to ask. I have no idea.
Jeremy Weisz 1:01:52
Yeah, um, you know, you mentioned the very beginning about Mets game, and I lizard. And so I made a note on the pad in front of me. Anyone could see that this is my notes that I’m I have for this interview that I have written. I wrote down Mets game, and lizard. So
Dave Will 1:02:15
Oh, my God. The way this came up, as I was telling you like, I went to a conference once where I learned as a sales session. And basically you’re talking about selling using stories. And you really should make a list of stories that are entertaining or interesting and, and over time, you’ll have an application for just about every one of them. This is one that I never really found an application for. But it sure is a fun story. How long do we have man? This is because honestly, okay, I’m going to tell the story because it is so fun. To tell a story you can hang up now if you’re, you know what, go on to the next podcast.
Jeremy Weisz 1:02:54
Listen, we’ve already opened the loop. So like to hear about Mets game and lizard. You can hang up now.
Dave Will 1:03:01
Okay, I’m so glad you already gave all the credentials and like all that stuff, because this one, it Okay, so here I am just out of college, my buddy Dave banano. Like this. So I’m 50 now, right? So this is like, this has got to be 2527 years ago, something like that. And, and I were we were living in Boston or Connecticut. He was in Connecticut. I was in Boston. And he calls me up. He’s like, Hey, you want to go to a baseball game and I’m thinking like, Fenway, or, or that actually, I don’t know what else was saying. I was just thinking, sure. You know, like, Let’s go Come on up. And he’s like, actually, no, let’s go to Shea Stadium in in New York. And like, Alright, so like, just, you know, because that’s what you do. When you’re 23 years old. You just jump in your car, like, Sure. I’ll pick you up in an hour and a half. So I get to his house, pick him up with Dr. Shea Stadium. And I think the reason was because the tickets were so cheap. So we get to the parking lot. We buy these tickets like 1275 for the nosebleeds.
Jeremy Weisz 1:03:56
And so we go long as a drive from where you weren’t.
Dave Will 1:03:59
It was like four hours or so. And I can’t remember if we plan this day before or whatever, but we get to Shea Stadium before the game starts and we get our tickets and we just buy the cheapest tickets at ticket office. And they’re 1275 remember that very clearly. There were 1275 and so we go into Shea Stadium we walk up the you know, those those ramps you walk up in the stadiums and it’s like never ending ramps that you’re walking up and up in this crowds of people finally, like you can see almost all the New York City off in the background. And then it’s like, you can look down and you can kind of see that pitcher’s mound and stuff. You’re like, Wow, this is awesome, but dizzy. These are the seats 1275 gets you. So we go up to the Usher and the Usher looks at our ticket. He goes Ooh, theory shakes his head. We’re like what? They really that bad? He’s like, well, I could get you better. Like, what do you mean? He’s like, well, for five bucks, I could get you seats right behind home plate where you can catch a fly ball, right? I can’t build If I can remember the story like this, I seriously haven’t told the story in about seven or eight years, I think. So I’m like, we’d love to catch a fly ball. So So what do we do? And I reached my wall. He’s like, No, no, no, no. He’s like, go down to Section A one. Go up to the Asha. Tell them the lizard sent you. Like, why? In baby name, my buddy and I looked at each other when Larry says, No, tell when the lizard sent you. Like, this is just so bizarre to go back down the ramp, like all the way down the ramp. This is like a cartoon now. It’s like a Monty Python thing. So we back down there, go to Section A one, and we walk up, and we go to the archer. And we’re like, hey,
Jeremy Weisz 1:05:44
the lizard sent us.
Dave Will 1:05:47
And it goes, like he rolls his eyes like you want to see that guy. And he points to the other entrance for a one. You know how like, these things have two entrances. So the other one is, See, I told you, dude, you made a mistake asking the story
Jeremy Weisz 1:05:58
at all. So this is what I was expecting.
Dave Will 1:06:01
Go to the other a one. We go up to that guy. And we’re like, hey, the lizard sent us. And he’s like, Oh, yeah. What do you tell you? Now this is New York, right? This is Shea Stadium in New York. And this guy is a shady as you can imagine. And we walk out and he’s like, Oh, yeah. What do you tell you? Like? Well, he said, for five bucks, we could get seats right behind home plate where we get to fly ball. And he’s like, yeah, that’s right. And so we reached him, was it Hey, hey, come on. And he brings us in the aisle like in the hallway in between, like the main area where you buy the hotdogs and in the stadium part. So we go into this hallway, and we give him our 10 bucks for the two of us. And he’s like, all right, he walks us down. And we get into these beautiful seats, like these amazing seats, right behind home plate. Where, in theory, if there wasn’t a net there, we could have cut a flap. But we had these amazing seats right behind home plate for 1275 plus five bucks. So we’re loving this game. Like 10 minutes later, another rusher walks up. He’s like, hey, and he points us out. like nobody else. He points at us. He’s like, let me see your tickets. And we both look at each other. And we pause or like, shut. Because these tickets do not go to these seats. By the way. We don’t know what to do. So I just like, hey, the lizard sent us. Like it no idea what to say. I’m just like, but the lizard sent us. just hoping there was some. And the guy’s like, Alright,
Jeremy Weisz 1:07:40
he walked away.
Dave Will 1:07:40
The people in front of us were dying, laughing like they must have experienced it because they’re probably season ticket holders. They probably experienced the lizard every week. But somehow, the lizard had quite some pole at Shea Stadium. So needless to say, We enjoyed the game. We didn’t catch a fly ball. But it was a phenomenal game. Awesome seats. So that night, I don’t know where I slept. I don’t know if I went back to Boston or spent the night in New York or what but I remember having a dream and I’m not making this up. This is a true story. Every piece of every single piece is a true story. That night, I had a dream that I had asked out this beautiful girl. Now as a bachelor, I was 23 I was horny. And so I asked out this beautiful, beautiful girl and we went out to dinner and I still didn’t know anything about girls at 23. And in I remember, this is a dream, by the way. This part’s a dream. And in my dream, I remember going out to dinner with her and we sat down we had dinner, and then I reached my wallet. No wallet. I didn’t know what to do. I was so embarrassed already. Excuse me, and I go up go up to the maitre D is that what you call a guy to? Like get the front of a fancy restaurant maitre d? I feel like it’s a hotel anyway, go up to the guy. The guy that takes your money and seats you and I was like, Listen, I am on a date. forgot my wallet. I don’t know what to do. But the lizard sent me. In my dream I actually use that line the lizard sent me. And he’s like, no problem, sir. We’ve got you covered. Now, that’s the Lizard Man. I love the story of the lizard. So if ever you’re in a pickle, well, I probably wouldn’t.
Jeremy Weisz 1:09:26
I’m just wondering if you go back to the stadium? Yeah, they’re probably a legend. Oh, lizard. Yeah.
Dave Will 1:09:34
You know, it’s really interesting, though, for talking about entrepreneurship. I mean, there’s some organized scam going on there and they weren’t making big bucks. It’s like five bucks here. Five bucks. There is probably just a couple kids that figured out they could get their beer money for the night, though. I
Jeremy Weisz 1:09:48
mean, also, like they saw an opportunity. Maybe those season ticket holders never show up so that they can just take someone from the nosebleeds. make their dreams come true and sit by But yeah, he probably could have charged 10 apiece or 15 apiece. You know,
Dave Will 1:10:05
funny so that was probably a little bit of a longer story than you were expecting when I told you
Jeremy Weisz 1:10:11
I didn’t know if I had an expectation I had no expectation when I Cujo with Mets game and lizard I did not know what was coming next.
Dave Will 1:10:20
I gotta say that story though. I that is probably one of my favorite stories to tell because it brings me back to a time in my life. That was just so carefree. Where if somebody calls you like, Yeah, why wouldn’t I drive four hours to see a baseball game when I don’t even care about baseball? Like,
Jeremy Weisz 1:10:36
of course what I mean is there’s a lot of, even though it’s meant to be a fun story. There’s a lot of lessons like connections, like connections or everything, right? I mean, you could be in the nosebleeds and one connection takes you right to the right behind home plate, just one connection. And I always feel like we’re one connection away from whatever like your son’s one connection away from getting amazing advice. For you know, The Kona Brand we’re all one connection so lizard.
Dave Will 1:11:08
Connection, man. I knew the lizard
Jeremy Weisz 1:11:11
in entrepreneurship to David’s like sometimes you’re just Oh, god, I’m in the nosebleeds. It just it’s just like one tweak to get to the front row. You know what I mean? One tweak. So anyways, thank you everyone. Check out PropFuel.com check out more episodes of the podcast. If you’ve stayed this long. He deserves a new thing. Oh
Dave Will 1:11:34
Oh my God.
Jeremy Weisz 1:11:36
Thanks, everyone.
Dave Will 1:11:37
Thanks, Jeremy.
Jeremy Weisz 1:11:38
Thanks, Dave.
