230: Mark Grimes — Launch a Startup Every Day for 31 Days

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Hello and welcome again to the Scaling Up Business podcast. I'm your host and scaling coach, Bill Gallagher. So we're talking today with Mark Brines and I don't know about you, but I think we've all had some of us have ideas all day long and mostly we say, right, it's about the execution, not the ideas. But Mark's trying to push the limits here and he has a novel story and I haven't heard it yet, so I'm interested and curious to hear what he has to say. Mark's is 31 startups in 31 days. So he started 31 different things and he's trying to get them profitable in 90 days and we'll hear how that's going. And it would go against the conventional wisdom of everything we talk about, which is to focus on just a couple of things and get those right before you go on to that. So we're going to talk to Mark Grimes who's in Portland area. Portland, Oregon area in just a second. I want to remind everyone we're here with a new show every week. We're actually recording two as it happens today. So if you happen to watch during the recording live stream, you'll see and hear this live. And then of course we release them Wednesday mornings. There's over 226 episodes now on every subject for the last few years. So go find anything to do with people, strategy, execution, cash. Scaling coach.com also downloads of all of the tools that are referenced in the offer. The offers easy for me to say, right? Buy our guests that you might want relative to the show. You'll find all that@scalingcoach.com links all there. Also in this time we're seeing unprecedented demand for coaching services. So there's 200 coaches in our world. If we can help match you with a coach who is in the scaling up world but does things in your way or with kind of your vibe or your personality will help you to find somebody who's, who's suitable for you. All right. With all that dispensed. Mark Grimes, welcome to the show.

Hey, Bill, thanks for having me here. I appreciate it.

Mark, I like, I don't even know where to get. It's so far out there, which is why you're on the show. Startup founder, angel investor, philanthropist. He's worked in creative agency type stuff. Had a variety of businesses over the years and works today. Coaching, mentoring. I don't even know if I have it. All right, you'll correct me. But developing things and talking about startup that early stage of the company, and he just did this thing to launch 31. And you're now in the phase of getting them cash flow, right? Cash positive.

That's right. That's exactly it. Yep. After a very long 31 first days in August, launching one a day. And at the end of that, now we're in the phase of 90 days to cash flow deposit, which ends the 30th of November.

So tell us a little bit more about your background before we get into this story, why you did this and how it's going like that.

So I've launched. I started my first company in 1989. It was a consulting and newsletter company aimed at directors of marketing of performing arts groups in the United States and globally. Nothing like it existed. I was relatively young, well 31 years younger than I am now, and managed to get it to cash flow positive in under 90 days. Actually, that one was in under 30 days. Had had clients ranging from the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago to the Kennedy center, the Lincoln Center. Amazing clients around the world. Grew it for about two, two and a half years. Over 500 or so clients. Ended up getting particularly bored with it because there was not a lot of there there. I mean, there was. But as far as engaging in my time and everything else, kind of got bored with it, so sold it and then moved on to the next thing. And I've been doing nothing but either starting my own companies or helping other people start their own companies since then and investing in companies, mainly just, you know, doing and starting my own things.

And like, what stage or size are these micro investments or, you know, what kinds of companies are we talking about.

That I invest in or that I start or both?

Both, I guess.

Okay, so. So in a round of angel deals that my wife and I did about 15 years ago, it was anywhere from 25 to 100,000 per company we'd invest. Which is kind of funny because I've never put that kind of money in investing in my own startup. It's always a lot less than that. So all my things, and one of the reasons they've been cash flow positive in 90 days or less with the things I've started in the past, is I'm very, very focused on just squeezing cost as far down as I can at the start and making sure that there are potential customers and paying customers there as the thing starts, launches, and grows. I've managed to grow two companies into the millions of dollars per year of sales. The highest one or the largest one being an interactive advertising Agency, which we ran for six, six and a half years. Office offices in Portland, San Francisco, New York, 40 staff members and seven plus million a year in revenue. Again, not huge. I mean these aren't monster companies, but they're more than a mon pa, you know, local grocery store too.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. And so you, so Your career is 31 years long and you along the way as well tell us the story of the, the 31 startups talk about.

Sure. So, so I have two current existing companies. One's a co working space that we started in downtown Portland. It's coming up on 12 years old. Now keep in mind, I'm a startup guy, so 12 years, I mean, I feel like I'm way past the time of golden watch on that one. I mean 12 years is way not a startup anymore. And then I have a podcast network that's aimed at startups and entrepreneurs and we do five live streaming shows every Friday. And that one's been going on for about three years too. While they still both exist right now. The pandemic changed them both as it has changed almost everybody's business. And suddenly I found myself with a lot of time at home. Our three adult sons are, you know, in their 20s and doing their own things. I've got a list I've been building for, you know, well over a decade at this stage that has over 350 startup ideas as so many, you know, as so many founders do. I mean, you know, I admit to be probably got entrepreneurial add, you know, always come up with those ideas as so many do. And so I was looking through the list and trying to figure out, write them down.

Right. Like I go sporadically in and out of writing down, but mostly now I'm like, ah, I just let them go. They come in one ear and out the other.

Yeah, yeah, well that's what I do. I just write them down in a spreadsheet. Yeah, yeah, just jot them down and try to be really clear about it too. Because sometimes the notes are so half assed I look back, you know, in a month or two and it's like, what, what does that even mean? You know, what seemed like a good idea at 2 in the morning? Maybe not three months later or three years later. So I was looking at the list and decided and something I've been wanting to do was, you know, it was hard to narrow it down to just one or two or three. I finally figured I wanted to do something I've been wanting to do for quite frankly a number of years now. So I talked to my wife in June of this year about the, you know, launching 31 startups in 31 days because I knew I had to have, you know, her sign off because it wasn't going to be, you know, this wasn't a two hour side project kind of a gig. And she said, sure. She says, but why don't you, you know, why don't you not do it in July, why don't you do it in August, you know, give yourself a month, build up, get ready. So I'm like, okay, I'll do that. So I gave myself a month and did absolutely nothing to still prepare for it. So I was just as behind the eight ball in August 1st as I was would have been in July. And then August 1 started and I wanted to start from square one. The whole idea was to do it public, to build in public, to not have all these side back deals so it would all look good and shiny and neat and pretty. It was to really do it, to show people how to do it with their own ideas.

Huh. So what does it mean to launch to you? What is, what does that qualify as a launch?

That's an excellent question. And nobody's asked that before. Nobody's asked that since August. What is the launch? What is a star, what is a startup and what's cash flow? Positive? Because that's everything I'm doing right. So nobody's asked those questions yet. So a launch to me, and again, this is going back to what I've done since 1989. A launch to me is saying here's the business, here's the business model. I'm now going to talk to X and that X can, depending on the business can be eight potential customers or 20 or 30 potential customers. So the launch is, here's the idea, here's what it does. And then starting to talk to customers right away, that's the launch. The launch doesn't have to certainly be at all a business plan. It doesn't have to be a website. You don't have to have the specific domain ready. You certainly don't have to have it legally registered. If I had to do that at 31 companies that have been 100 or 200 grand in the hole just to, just to say we're going to do the thing.

So launch just means really, you're beginning to actually work on it with some interaction other than in your head. It's out of your head now and it's in between you and other people.

Exactly.

Okay. That's the definition of a Launch?

Yep. The launch is. It's out of the head. It's on paper or on a website or whatever the case might be here in this case, you know, Medium and LinkedIn, et cetera, Twitter, whatnot. So the idea is out there. Here's what it is. People are free to steal it and borrow it, to think it's good. They're free to point at it and say that's a bunch of bullshit. Whatever they want to do, I'm fine with that. I'm just doing it publicly, knowing full well that while the goal is to get to 90 days to cash flow positive once the last one's launched, knowing that all, all 31 are highly unlikely to get there, but more than one will probably get there.

So it's shotgun approach for sure. You're just going to throw out a whole bunch of. And see what sticks. Right? Throw it up against the wall, as they say.

To a certain degree. Yeah. I mean, I would like all 31 to get the cash flow positive. That's a goal. I'm not leaving anything for dead until the very last day. I'm not deciding. I'm not going to decide. You know, 70 days in, that one's a goner. I will wait until the end now, you know, some may get to no revenue, some may get to a few hundred in revenue, and some may get to a few thousands in revenue. It's hard to say. We've had people estimate guesses of anywhere from a couple of grand to. I think, I think the biggest guess so far is $1.75 million. And, and I'm pulling for that person to be right. But I don't think it's going to quite hit there either.

Okay, so then comes so and cash flow positive seems pretty obvious. There's sales greater than zero and greater than your expenses, Right?

Exactly. Yeah. And one could, I mean, people would need to take a look at kind of the list of the 31 companies. But obviously you could game the system and the whole thing could be just a game. Right. So day one could be, I'm going to launch the red crayon company and I could buy that box of red crayons for a dollar, sell it for two and I win. It's cash flow positive. Now, I look like a chump and a fool to do something like that. So that's not the idea. But you're right. The idea is you're going to do the thing, you're going to share the thing. And by the way, 100% of all income, all Revenue and all expenses are being done online too, so people can go and see what's been spent where. But the idea is to try to get it to, to real cash flow positive and have it build or on its way towards building into what could be a real sustainable business.

So let's bring this to life with some examples, maybe not all 31, but let's talk about a few of them before we probe why on earth you would do this. Yeah, yeah, right. So I see number one is Tillamook Axe Company.

Yep.

What is that all about?

Okay, so, so kind of pre Covid actually ax throwing businesses were becoming kind of a thing early stage. Whether they were separate entities, party related things or in some cases bars and taverns and that kind of thing. Though I would not recommend hurling axes and drinking heavily is not really a good combination. And again, to each his own. So I looked at that, I looked at the business, I thought about it. I've still to this day never thrown an ax. Not to this day. So not yet.

But you saw this and you thought people need more targets.

People. Well, people need good targets, right? Because they're kind of, if you're, if you're not a woodworker, you can go out and buy, you know, axes at Home Depot and Amazon and which I have now since done. So I have them, I just haven't hucked one yet. Okay. But I, I, I, I met a husband and wife that have a precision woodworking company that do super high end things in Bay City, Oregon, which is a coastal town. Approached them with the idea and they're on board with it. So I'm working with them. Actually got a, a photo for the first time over the weekend of, of the first kind of the guts of the very first axe target company. So we, it should, it's just the guts of it which is the main part of the target now it needs to go up on what amounts to a stand because it really needs to be, it needs to be built pretty precisely to kind of meet the specifications of believe it or not, what is called the World Ax Throwing league with.

Over 100 on TV, cable, etc.

Yeah, perfect.

Perfect dog splitting. We've seen lots of these sort of woodsman, whatever they call it, type events.

I know nothing about it.

And I have thrown an ax and not just at roadkill, but like in camp activities. Right. In fact last year we had ax throwing at like an axe throwing station at an entrepreneur camp I went to to.

Very cool, very cool. When I was a kid down in Albany, down In Albany, Oregon, they used to have the world. Well, it was the world championship Timber Carnival and there was ax throwing and tree climbing and, you know, log rolling in a big man made lake. I mean, some amazing, amazing fun stuff.

I like it. Okay, so you're gonna, you started the Telebook Expo. Company is gonna sell ax throwing targets, not axes, but at least to start, right?

Not to start. I mean. Yeah, well, I'm not going to get too crazy.

For this. Or did you just think we should make this?

You know, I think it's, it's a market opportunity based on what's hot that's out there. You know, I have a, I mean, I have a hard time defining an axe throwing target company as what is the problem that it's looking to solve? I mean, it is to a certain degree, because it's like if you're not good at woodworking, you're not going to be able to build this thing to the specs you need it to. But.

But that's really fast while you throw axes at it.

Exactly. Yep.

Yeah. So, so you're going to do this and you now have a supplier and you're going to sell them online, I'm guessing.

Yep, we'll sell them online and start to, to poke around some local, some, some locations in Telebook just so we can get some more video and photos of the things being done. But, but here's the. I don't know. I don't know. You can't really call it secret sauce because A, I'm going to say it B, it's not even proven to be a good idea yet.

Right.

So we're starting a, we're starting an axe throwing podcast. And you'll love the fact that we're calling it Axe Me Anything.

All right, now that's within this company, not a separate company. Right?

It's within this company, not a separate one. But I surely could have made it nice to have it be one of the others because it would have made my life easier. Anyway, so, so what we're doing, we actually have eight guests lined up already.

Okay.

I'm not going to be one of the hosts because I'm too busy doing other things. So what we're going to do is we're going to start having these people that are, as you can imagine, a lot of them, really characters. Right. These are interesting people and they're going to talk about axe throwing, what attracted them to it, what they do during the day. It's just a study in people and interesting ideas.

Characters.

Yep. Yep, yep. A lot of characters. And guess who will sponsor that podcast? The Tillabook Axe Company. There you go.

So you'll sell these targets online, right? I guess you want your questions on the podcast to be very much on target, right?

Bada boom. Nice. Love it.

Okay, so there's one. This is one of 31 for our listeners, right? All right, let's, let's pick another one randomly. Walden for founders. What's that all about?

So a few years ago I actually did a podcast and we had, I think it, I don't remember now, it was either over 200 or 300 episodes and it was all about the tiny house movement. So all about kind of small, all about small space living. And while I could never live in one full time, I'm still enamored by the idea. I'm also kind of appreciative of the idea of container living, which is similar with shipping containers that are kind of done in 320 foot cubes basically for shipping containers. But I like the idea of a founder community of people living together in high end containers. Like 12 to 12 to 15 people founders. And they, they're big enough that, and you can put two together. So you can go from 320 to 640 square feet, but they're big enough that, that you could live in them relatively comfortably. Especially if you're working a startup and you know, you're not home 168 hours a week on top of that. But the whole idea is a community of somewhat like minded people together at least focused on growing their businesses. Huh.

See, I probably would call this entrepreneur in a box.

I need to get you as my PR guy. This is awesome.

Down there in the box.

Perfect. Yeah. Founder in a box. Let me out.

No. Containers can be really cool. Container living, container houses, container offices. And we've seen them in, you know, whether it's Zurich or Berlin or across the US now more and more of these things, people turning them into cool structures. So it can be kind of cool. It does have that living in a box connotation though. And the same thing true really with the tiny home. But there's something about and I think really appealing for people and the simplicity of it. It's certainly the antithesis of the micromansion as people get fatigued with things.

Agreed with you. And I have seen those founders that I've met over certainly the last number of years though. They get an incredible pile of cash. They buy a bunch of junk. Junk can mean airplanes or $200,000 cars, whatever. And then they start to realize that that really didn't make them that happy. So then they start to go in a different direction of kind of minimalism and less stuff and more experiences and more meaning. And to a certain degree, this is, this is kind of meant to embrace that kind of group too, because maybe you're going to live in this Walden experience on the Oregon coast, but then maybe after a year and a half, you decide you want to do it in the location in London or some other place. So guess what? You can easily pack up your stuff and go and relocate, and you'll still have a similar community of people to kind of hang with.

Yeah, London wouldn't be so Walden like, though.

That's true. Good point. Point.

Gritty, maybe. And depending on which part of town, Right. We've got tons of startups in like, shortage neighborhood and containers. Right. There's lots of. There's like, container. There's actually, there's a hub co working space in the container. That's. That's all in containers in the shortage neighborhood.

Yep. Okay, cool.

So do you have a location? Do you have a supplier of these containers? Do you have people who want to live in them?

We have a. I have a, you know, half a dozen different companies based on connections with the Tiny House podcast that, that, that either have done containers or could do containers based on their building experiences. And I've got two founders that have a, at best right now, kind of a vague interest in doing it. But again, this all doesn't count until somebody writes checks. So vague interest doesn't really matter until somebody says, okay, here's, you know, here's 25 grand down for this thing that you're going to build in Bend, Oregon, or the Oregon coast or Mount Good wherever.

So, so this is really. We have possible people involved. We're talking. Right State. Right?

Okay, exactly.

Let's take a really different one in here then. How about cow working?

Cow working. Okay, that's. That's by far the goofiest one. At least I think it is, too. So the whole idea with cow working is basically inviting a cow to your zoom meeting. So if you or I were here in a zoom meeting and if I was more of a, you know, not a Faces for radio guy, but a Faces for TV guy, anyway, you'd have you and I here in a zoom meeting, and all of a sudden Bessie or whoever, somebody would join our meeting and it would just be some camera for some chunk of time. And, and how's this. There's precedent for this that's what killed me. There is actually, there's a website out there. I have since come to find out after this, which is again perfect because it's proven the model is going to work. Movingly. Anyway, thank you, thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week. So. But, but it's called, it's called goat to meeting. Goat meeting. Right. So, yeah, so I just need it right now. And, and that's not. How do we say, you know, I'm trying to, I'm moving, trying to move faster with the ones that like, you know, business models that could last for years. You know, this one's a little bit more tongue in cheek. I don't think they're gonna, I like with everything. There's going to be challenges with it finding a dairy farmer who are. I mean, dairy farmers are some of the hardest working people on the planet. They have like maybe a half a day off a year. It's Christmas Day, so. And I happen to know a couple of dairy farmers, but I haven't talked to them about it yet because I know I'm going to have to. I'm going to have some explaining to do when I go to tell them what's going to happen with their cows.

You know, it's probably the highest margin thing they would do all day is put a camera on their cows. But I think that the harder part is finding somebody who's going to pay you to bring a cow into their meeting. But maybe not.

You know, I've had three people that have asked me how much it's going to be and I gave them a range and they said, let me know when it's ready to go.

So they want the cow in the meeting.

They want the cow. They're waiting for me to give them a cow answer. Yep. Now that's just three people. That doesn't prove a market. That doesn't prove anything. But, you know, you just have to have however many people with, with whatever kind of sense of humor and all of a sudden you have something that might be kind of interesting that could get going.

All right, all right, well, so let's. I have a whole bunch of questions.

Sure.

So just a handful of the 31 here that you've launched and how do you. Or. Well, why so many. Why do all 31 in this way? Why is this the challenge?

Yep. Well, it's, it's been in my head for a while. That's one. I guess that's kind of the simplest answer in some regards. I have talked to like, you know, I talked to a recently exited founder who actually did very, very well after running his company for eight years. And he actually shared a story with me that before he launched this, he was going to do 10 companies over a year. And I'm like, wow, okay, well that's cool. He actually got three in and then the third one got very sick, ended up in the hospital. And even the three were having some interesting early stage starts to them just decided on the other company he really wanted to go all in on, came out of it and then that's what he did for eight years. So there, there certainly people that have done some amount over some amount of time, larger time frame, be that a year, whatnot. There's something like if you look at Startup Weekend, which is a 72 hour experience of you meet everybody, pitches ideas, you form teams on a Friday night, the teams go about building their things and then they have something that's an MVP by Sunday night. Some of them even have revenue. So their Startup Weekend, which is again a 72 hour experience. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of things around this. So, you know, 31 was literally again, because I wanted to do one a day, a month. And I guess I was silly enough to want to do it on a 31 day month rather than February and keep it to 28.

Yes. Okay. So, well, I mean, we know this from other realms, right? We've seen people run a marathon every week for 50 weeks. We've seen people run a marathon every day, even for some period of time.

Sure.

And so extreme things to. It's kind of cool to test the limits of what we know and understand. You get that, the challenge of it. But then, okay, so you launch one now I've got 31 conversations, ideas, projects, initiatives going. And with each passing day, it becomes much more complex. By the time I'm at the end now I've got, now I have only 60 days left to begin getting Cash Positive. And in that time frame, I have to keep all these balls in the air, these plates spinning. Right. And I just see like, oh my God, I can't even keep my one going.

Right. That's a definite challenge that I've never had to face before. That's a big part of it. There are, there are people that are following this, some of whom that want to be on quote, unquote, teams, even though nobody quite knows what that means yet. So I hope to be able to create a situation where teams might be a split of net revenue for that specific idea. It's certainly not going to be a situation where I start even beginning to even think about managing 31 teams because that sounds like its own other level of nightmare too. It needs to be as flat as possible when it comes to management of this and the teams need the, and the individuals need to self organize. But you're right, it, it was and has been complex up until now and will only get more so. Although I'm also trying to keep the day to day execution of things down to what is the one thing that needs to happen next before the next one thing that needs to happen after that. So in a lot of ways I am doing this differently than I've done any other company I've started obviously since 1989. Because I would be way deep into one right now. You know, we're 60 days in right now. I'd be super deep into one and instead I'm still steps into, you know, quite a few of them, but not even all of them. So you know, I mean, yeah, but I'm not complaining because I mean, I'm the one that made it happen.

So if I was going to do 10 startups like your friend over a year, I would pull together 10 different leaders and build 10 teams to work on the 10 ideas. I would launch each of them and I would only be hands up. But it sounds like you're actually doing calls and networking and things like that, not simply giving an idea and putting, marrying that with a leader or leaders to go charge it. Is that right?

That's totally correct, yeah. There was no way to say I'm going to find, you know, 31 people, let alone 31 teams of three people to really run with something that just wasn't, that just wasn't a. I don't think that was a realistic possibility either. So what I'd like to do is get it to a stage where a small team that likes the idea can do some small tasks and chores towards getting it to the next level and then maybe it, it can generate enough revenue to bring on the team to build the company into something more.

Huh. Now so what's off limits? Are you like, you're not actually like buying cows or, or making prototypes or making ax targets or things like that yourself, Right?

Exactly. That's just it. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not out there making major purchases. I'm not building manufacturing situations. I'm finding people that can do it and provide that and trying to provide enough potential upside in some cases too that if it works like with the axe throwing Target company. It'll benefit the company we're partnering with to build it and to hire people and to help their company grow as well.

So it seems like that there's a fair amount of kind of self referential stuff in here. So like you've got like exiting and you've got startup housing and you've got, it's all, there's quite a bit that's around this whole world that's there, right?

Yeah, I would say there's probably, I mean I haven't done the math to count them exactly. There's probably about a third of the things maybe are related to startups, entrepreneurship and founders. But that's also my world too. Right. That's where I've been living for 31 years. Then there are other things like the ax throwing target. You know, I've never built anything, I've never thrown an ax. Like I said, there's the, the whiskey glasses, the whiskey cones which are high end whiskey. Whiskey glasses made of hand blown glass. One of the people that's building it right now, again I didn't have this on day one when we started it, but it is now and one of the, one of the glass blowers is Chihuly trained. So I mean, you know, super high end stuff. I've never myself. Now I've helped some others. I've never myself built a company that, that has created a, built a physical product before. So this is all new to me, every bit of it, every day.

You've always been services oriented or.

I've always been services oriented and, or software as a product but not physical products.

Huh. Interesting. So who are your heroes?

My heroes on, on the business side of things are, I would say, I would put Richard Branson pretty close to the top I think. Who, who by the way, I was starting to say, look, do you know There are over 400 Virgin companies. Not that I'm saying this is anything like that. I'm just saying. Did you realize I knew he had many virgin companies. I had no idea they were over 400. Anyway, I think I like, I've always liked his attitude. I've always liked his, the way he goes about things. He seems to enjoy life. He likes to work with youth and people that are oftentimes disadvantaged. And I don't know, he just strikes me as somebody who, when, when you, you know, when you toss out the. Who would you like to sit down and have dinner with? He's usually the person that comes to mind. So on the business side of things, that's it. On the social change side of things, probably Muhammad Yunus. You know him? Muhammad Yunus, who built the Grumman bank for microfinance. He developed the whole concept. I've actually met him face to face a couple of times. Back to the business side. So back in 1996, I got a fax. So it tells you it was 1996 because it was a fact.

It was a fax.

It was a facts. I got the full facts and basically somebody said, I've seen your website. I love it. I love the idea of following up to a website with a fax. But anyway, we have to find a way to work together. So we talked on the phone after that. Worked with them for four years until they had a really nice exit. But it was Seth Godin.

Oh, yeah, Seth.

Yes, it was. So. So I've known Seth for quite a few years. Worked with him to build Yo Yodyne until they exited Yo Yodyodyne. I'd put him up there as a hero. Even though he's an associate, I'd still put him up there as a hero. And of all the things. And this goes back to other. Other stuff as well, too. I've spent I don't know how many hours over the years with him on the phone, especially way back then, exchanging emails. I still to this day never met him face to face.

Oh, no.

Yeah. So I'd love to be able to sit down and, you know, have a coffee or a dinner. Spend some time with him then too. Yeah.

Interesting. It's interesting to hear people's heroes and connections and things like that. Right. Who they aspire to be and who inspires them with things. And. And we also can hear our connection or affinity to any one of the people that people cite, the influence that they've had on us in our life. I certainly have had several connections to Seth over the years and to Richard Branson.

Yeah.

And. And to Muhammad Yunus. So, yeah, it's really cool.

You look at them too. I would set aside Muhammad, Eunice, probably. But you look at both Seth and you look. You look at Seth, you really. And Branson too. They're really both kind of. In a certain ways too. They're kind of entertainers. You know, the way that they tell stories and. And whatnot, too. A big part of what they do is entertain in a business sense of things. I don't know. That's. That's the. That's the take I get from how. How I enjoy their stuff anyway.

Yeah. There's for sure a certain amount of that. So now you're. How many days into this initiative?

Now we are. We've got 57 days left. Okay. I'm in the countdown side of things.

So you're. Well, you're. You're a little over 30 days in then. So you've launched all the things. And are you regretting having started this?

There was a time about less than. Less than half of the 31 days in. Probably at about 10 days in, I did wonder, why did I do this? Yeah, because, you know, I was having to do this thing every day. I was having to write it up. My wife was taking photographs. She was doing the. She was doing editing to help me out. So it sounded somewhat coherent. And I'm like, oh, my God. But, you know, it's like if you've ever tried to either a, lose weight or stop smoking or something like that. Well, once you tell enough people you're committed.

Yeah, a certain value.

Yeah. I would say probably someday some guy is going to come along and some gal, and they're gonna do 32 days or 365 or whatever. And just like, you know, eight minute abs became seven minute abs became six minute apps. And you know what? More power to them. That's great. I mean, I'm still having. Honestly, I'm having a blast in a lot of ways. I'm having the time of my life because I'm able to try and do all these things without having. Without having basically, in some ways to put, you know, all the. All the chips on red or whatever. It's like there's a lot of things happening. Some of these things are working out in ways I would have never expected. Some of them I'm running into roadblocks I never really would have seen. So I'm having a blast.

That's really interesting. So a couple more questions before I do that. I want to remind everyone that if the show helped you, we would love it if you would give us a review. Go in there and say something about your experience of the show that helps us the most. You can also give it a rating, rate it, review it. Those are the things that help us reach more people. You can, of course, pass along to someone else. That's a lovely way to share the show if it's of value to you. And you can, of course, subscribe, and we'll get them to you every week. You can subscribe either wherever you get your podcast, or you can subscribe@scalingcoach.com where we have all of the downloads, all the tools, all that kind of thing. If you want to drop us a line, send an email to infocalingcoach.com with any feedback requests, that kind of thing, and we'll be happy to respond to you. I want to give special thanks to our producer Lucy Summers, who's in the background and before and after every show, getting things ready and making it work and all that. And special thanks to Vern Harnish, author and creator of the Scaling Up Framework and the Rockefeller Habits that preceded it. Our audio is edited by Albert Burge at Podfly Productions and our shownotes are written by Ian Kodina and proofread by Tim McGowan. So back to this. What's next for you in this phase? What's the present challenge ahead for you?

The biggest challenge right now, quite frankly, is just sharing information. Because, because each, each individual company in its own way is working itself out in interesting ways. I just got some photos of the whiskey glasses today. I just got pictures of the the axe target here. Over this last weekend, we just put the we're doing a 20th anniversary nod to Almost Famous, the movie called Almost Quarantined, where we're having the the Real World Penny Lane, Ben Fong Torres, who is also represented as the editor of Rolling Stone in the movie as well. So we're going to do a Q and A thing with them. So that's going to be launched and that's going to be happening later this month in October. All that being said, like you said at the beginning, it's like, well, you know, we're not going over all 31. It's like you, we just can't if we spent three minutes talking about 31, we'd be almost, you know, an hour and a half into the stupid thing. So, so it's just, it's getting the information out and trying to share with people is, is its own kind of conundrum. It's a really difficult puzzle. So I'm just the main thing is I'm working on doing the stuff every day, but I'm trying to figure out the biggest challenge right now is how to share with people what is I'm doing in a way that's at least vaguely organized so people can see it for themselves.

Well, so to tell our listeners, if you want to see what's happening, you want to look at some of the rest of these that we didn't talk about or see how things are going, you should go to 90 days to cash Flow Positive. We'll put that link up there. 90 days to cash Flow Positive. We'll also put it in the show notes and stuff so you can read it and find out about it. Oh, Mark, I want to thank you for coming on the show and sharing with us all about your wacky and fascinating project. It will be interesting to see how things are going. It is definitely high on quirk factor and I think that's cool. So thanks again for making it a good conversation.

Well, Bill, thanks. Thanks for having me. Lucy, thanks for producing the show. I appreciate that. And you know to all the listeners out there, especially some of the newly unemployment 55 million of you of the United States, you know, if I can try to do this with 31 companies, you have that one idea. You don't have to have the business plan. You don't have to raise money. You just have to get it going. So good luck to you and if I can help with anything, please reach out.

All right. Thanks everyone. We'll talk to you again next week. Thanks and keep scaling up.