Special Guest Abbi Vakil Talks Business- DBA Small Business Show 11

Greetings, folks, and welcome to the DBA podcast, the Small Business podcast, episode number 11 for Wednesday, April 22, 2015, here in Durham, New Hampshire. I'm Dave Hamilton.

And I'm Shannon Jean in Northern California. We're in my office today in Concord, California, and we're here with one of my good friends, Abby Vakil, to do our first DBA interview, which is pretty exciting.

All right. Thank you for having me on.

Of course.

Thanks for coming, man. It's good to have you. It's good to have a guest. It's. It's good to mix things up a little bit.

We're.

It's actually, it's not really a mix up. This is how we want the show to go. So this.

Yeah, well, 11 shows. Certainly people are tired of hearing my voice by now, so. All by itself. So this will be good.

I certainly am. No.

Yeah.

Well, I figured I can count on.

You for that, Dave. That's right.

That's right. That's right. So what's great is, you know, we wanted to do our first interview, and we want to make sure somebody was cool and, you know, think friendly and come out and we could be relaxed. Well, speaking for myself, anyway, and you know, Dave and I have known Abby for a long time.

I've.

I've known Abby for many, many years. You know, but the.

The.

The interesting thing is that I used to see Abby once a year, and it was for Mac World. And we were, you know, I would go to the Mac World Expo, and this was before I was exhibiting there. And, you know, Abby, they would always.

Have this cool booth.

This was, we fix Max at the time, 800, we fixed max or maybe All Mac.

All Mac at that time.

Yeah. You know, they had this great big booth with light. It's kind of red lights, and they all wore these doctors lab coats. And I was like, man, these guys are awesome. You know, I was always impressed. And I started talking to Abby and we would always talk and, you know, we had a lot of things in common and we were both in the same industry in the Apple space, and we'd tell all these stories and kind of laugh, you know, maybe 15, 20 minutes at the show. And then we'd say, oh, hey, okay, we got to get together. I'll come down to your place, you come up to my place, we'll do this something.

And then.

Yeah, that's correct. And then 12 months later, I'd walk by his booth again, and we'd sit and talk. And then I started having a booth. And so you know, that went on for years.

Yeah.

And. And I think really, it was not until this. Was it this year or was it last year that you came up?

I think it was last year.

In the fall of last year, I finally. Abby and I had together. We had an event at my house, and Abby came over with his lovely wife's hammer.

Yeah. Okay.

And we had a great time, drank a lot of wine, and it was. It was a lot of fun. So, you know, Abby's great guy. Got some, you know, very good stuff to talk about today, and I think we're going to roll right into it. And. Yeah, thank you for hanging out with.

Us this afternoon and thank you for having me on. Yeah.

I did promise to buy him lunch when we're done, so. Hey, we're committed, you know.

That's it.

We're in.

Yeah.

So, Abby, we love to tell stories on this show, and I. We would love to start with, you know, maybe one of your favorite business stories that you have maybe told four or five thousand times before and share with our readers.

Listeners. But that's.

Yes.

Boy, I do that all the time.

The. The story that I'm always telling people is, of course, is how I started in this business. Because almost all good things, even some of the products that I've worked on, have always been, you know, as. The good stuff has been accidental. And even this business. Right. I didn't start thinking that, okay, this is something that this is a good business opportunity, or you study, sure. And you say, oh, this is a good business to get into. It's all by, you know, just serendipity or something happens and you're in that business. Right. And so I came to America. I had a full scholarship to Stanford, but that money was simply paying for room, board, and tuition. And there was no money for, you know, go get a beer or something like that.

That's important.

Yeah, very important. So I was thinking of, okay, how can I make some side money? And so I started helping people with their computer problems. And I used to charge. I used to go around the campus and charge people in those days, 625 an hour. And so, you know, you're hired. Yeah, exactly. So. So I would. I would help people. And I was going along. And in those days, you know, I didn't even have, you know, I had hardly any money. I didn't even have three digits in my bank account. And then I went to this one customer. Her name was Barbara. I still remember her. And I did about three and a half hours worth of Work for her. And she said at the end of that time, she said, how much do I owe you? So I'm calculating in my head 6.25 times 3.5. And that takes a little bit of seconds to do it. And then she goes, it must be 150. Okay. So I was a little taken aback because remember, I don't even have a hundred bucks in my bank account at this time. So I was going to charge you like 20 something. And she's, she's offered me 150. So I was little. Actually speechless is the right word. So she thought I was upset with her. She says, okay, okay, okay, 175, no more. Wow.

Being quiet really paid off.

Yeah. So I said, wow, this is a real business here because I'm charging 625, but the customer is willing to pay more like 50 bucks an hour.

Right.

So that was one of the first lessons that I learned, which is in pricing your service or your product properly. And I said, okay, this is now a business. This makes people willing to pay money and you can make money at it. And that business then eventually developed into a chain of Apple service Centers. We had four stores, you know, 40 plus employees. And we were doing a lot of business all around the world actually, where people would send in their parts to get it fixed. And that was before there were Apple stores.

Yeah. I can remember when I just got into the Apple business and it was, oh, call 1-800-WE FIX MAX. And I can even remember people saying, what's your phone number?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, in those days. That's funny. Is that even how the name 800V Fix Max came about is we had long distance service with MCI. Right. Okay. Yeah. And MCI and, and you couldn't get phone. There was number portability now. Right. But in those days there wasn't. So they just gave me a bunch of prefixes that they owned. And so then that's how I said, they said, okay, these are the prefixes available. Let me think of a toll free number with a name attached to it. And I've always, actually, if I think about all the businesses that I've had, they've always been descriptive in their names of what they do. And so it just was luck. Yeah, that's good. Those are the prefixes. And I just.

So the pre, the, the numbers created the name in a way.

The choices.

Yeah, the choices. What you had.

Yeah, that's cool. Anyway, so the business was born and we started pricing properly. Yeah. And making.

You learned. You learned the Value of doing math in your head.

Yeah, yeah.

But not too fast, but not too quickly. That's right, yeah, yeah, that's classic.

That's good. Well, so tell us about your current businesses. You know, how many have, what do you do?

Well, so I've always had businesses in the Apple vertical currently. So I started out in the service business. So that was mainly fixing people's computers. Is hardware software in those days there used to be a lot of hardware and less so on the software side. And then that allowed, because I was in a service business, allowed me to do other things in the same vertical. Almost all the business that I've been involved with, either as a founder, as a co founder, is always in the Apple space. And starting out of the service business, you get to talk to the customer, you see what they need. And then I was able to co found another company that started designing accessories for Apple. And so we've been in the space for so long, you and I Shen especially that even when Apple was going out of business. Right. Is when we were. Those are the best of times, those you were thriving.

Yeah, yeah.

I always said to people, people always come to me and say Apple is doing so well, you must be doing so well. And they have no idea that actually the best times in this business was when Apple was doing so bad.

Well, you're counterintuitive. And not everybody ignored the business for so long.

We were thinking different.

Ye, yes, we were.

Well, yeah, there was less competition is what it was. Certainly there's more dollars poured into the Apple market in every corner of it. Right. I mean, because the three of us kind of represent different aspects of it. But yeah, it was way easier to make money when Apple was beleaguered because there were less people trying to make money in the Apple market.

Oh absolutely. And I remember there was a time when as part of the product development company that I was involved in, we were making power supplies, power suppl for G4S and G3S. Okay. AC adapters. Right. And there was nobody interested in, there was no Chinese company interested in, in making those. And we did a rip roaring. We were doing 20,000 units a month selling third party AC adapters. Right. Yeah. To charge your G3s and G4 with.

The standard power plug.

Well, you know, the ones from the G4. Right. The round barrel ones. Not before they went to MagSafe. Yeah. So that was a great business. And nobody else was competing with you. Yeah. So you could have, you could, you could have nice margins. Sure. And you could afford to make mistakes.

Yeah. The pie was, yes, smaller, but it was far less players. Want me to take a piece of it.

That's right. And that's another thing is, right, you gotta. You can't go to where everybody is. You can't go to where the crowd is. You have to go to where the crowd. You just zig when everybody else is egging or whatever.

Yeah.

And that's. Those were good days. Yeah. And now we ride that momentum today.

Sure.

Yeah.

And we talk about that a lot here, you know, staying out of the middle, you know, trying to come up with things that everybody ignores. I always make the comment, most of the biggest deals in my life have always been for what other people thought was junk because they ignored it. And so you just kind of sniff it out. And that sounds like you've done similar stuff, even.

Like, for example, let's say one of the products that I was working on was a battery case for iPhones Right when it first came out. And everybody now is focused on making power banks that have 10,000 milliamps or 15,000. But nobody's making these thin ones just for, like, a little bit longer. You know, you got to think differently and make product that not everybody else is making.

Yeah, no, that's correct.

Yeah, that's cool.

So. So what was the first business that you had ever, that you started up?

The first business that I ever started up. This is also a funny story. So I came to America, and in America, they have ice cubes. Okay. But in India, which is where I was growing up, they didn't have ice cubes back then. So it's a funny story because in India, you would buy ice in blocks, okay. And people would have ice picks. And if you ever had a party in India in your house, then you would have the ice maker in your fridge with ice tray and all that. And then you'd have to go around like a beggar with your ice bucket to your neighbors and say, I'm having a party. Can you lend me some ice? Right. So I said this. So I saw that people in America were selling ice cubes in, like, bags. So I came back during one summer and I said, let me start a ice cube making business. Okay? And that was the first business that I ever had. This is before my Macintosh consulting, 625 an hour type things. And I was. And that business was the first ice factory in India at that time selling cubes. Okay. Right. And of course, I had to go back. So eventually I sold it. Okay. But it is a good lesson in there in the sense that I also remember I was telling you I have all descriptive names. So I called the company Pure Ice. Pure Ice, Right. And that was the name of the company. And one of the lessons that I learned was I was so focused, you know, India is not a very clean place. So, so focused on living up to the name Pure Ice that I didn't focus as much as I should have on say, selling or marketing. And so I spent a lot of energy on trying to live up to the name.

So do you find as you're part of you being an entrepreneur, the startup is much more enjoyable than the long term management of it and taking care of those details or do you like both?

I like the beginning. The beginning is always fun because you're trying to deal with challenges, doing things that people have not, you know, thought of before and you're up to, you know, you're, you're, you're dealing with skeptics. There were so many people who thought I was stupid to start selling ice cubes.

Sure.

Who the hell, you know, was gonna. And eventually though, and I sold the company to a guy who started, who, who called his company Perfect Ice. Ah. And as you and I both know, he's a Perfect doesn't mean anything. It's, you know, I have the beholder. And he has done really, really well. Really. And I of course should have not sold that company. Who knows what I'd be doing?

He's still in business today, so. Still, he's still in the ice.

Oh, he's a huge, it's huge. He was in the Wall Street Journal.

Wow.

It was a, it's, they're doing rip roaring business. But of course he's in India. Yeah. But it's, Everybody needs ice.

Yeah, sure. That's cool. That's good. So what a crazy thing though.

I mean, great that you noticed it, but that, that's just the, that's the. If there's a lesson that I could tell anybody that wants to get into businesses, just take a minute and figure out what it is that everybody wants but hasn't articulated yet. Right. And that's the trick. Yeah.

You have to just. You, you know, business opportunity is all around you actually.

Yeah.

And you just have to be thinking like that. I think you need to have that sort of a mindset that looks at some people look at problems and they just complain about them. And some people look at the problem and say this is how you could solve that problem. And that's how sometimes businesses get created. So like the first iPhone case. We, we were the first company Fast Mac was the first company to make a case for the iPhone that has a battery in it. And we won best of show at Mac world back in 2008, right after the phone came out. And I just knew that this phone's going to be running out of battery. Is you're going to still running out of battery. Yeah, yeah. And so you just look, you have to look at, at that as an opportunity. Every problem, there's an opportunity behind it and you just have to look at that.

Yeah, it's powerful. That is really a good thing, a good observation to, you know, repeat over and over because.

Right. Because it, it's the kind of thing that when people hear it, they say, oh, of course, of course. Yep. Every, every problem is an opportunity. But until you take a problem and make it an opportunity for you, I don't think. I think it's hard to grasp just how powerful and how much of a truth that is until you've done something and then you're like, well, wait a minute. That was way easier than I thought it would be. Not that being in business is easy, but it is easier than you think it would be.

Yeah. And I think most people feel powerless.

Yes.

Change those problems that we find each day or those things, you're like, God, wouldn't it be great if someone did X, you know, made ice cubes, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's cool. That's great. So I mean, you started the ice business. Was it your goal to be a business owner? I mean, that was. Was that where you were headed or.

What was your, you know, it was actually just a summer break, you know, so it was just something that I. But I think I've always been entrepreneurial. When I was, from the earliest of days, so I didn't think that I will be a businessman or that I will have companies or things like that. I was just always entrepreneurial nature. And so therefore, if you're thinking like that, that, you know, you're thinking of opportunity is around every problem, then you're going to be eventually getting into business.

You can be in the right place.

Yeah. And then you just have to have. You have to have luck. Luck is something that is always underrated. So you have to have, you know, good timing is very important too. This has to be some luck. Of course, hard work. But, but you have to be thinking differently or thinking of the problem in thinking of solutions to the problem rather than just bemoaning the problem. Yeah. There's a lot of people, as a saying, they spend 80% of the time complaining about the problem and not. And 20 of the time thinking of a solution to the problem. If you just, you know, forget the problem, don't complain about it too much. Just think of ways to solve it. This will help with communications with your wife or. Right. You know, business in general. Yeah.

And I would say entrepreneurs often use the word luck. Oh, I was lucky. I was this. But I actually think it's not. It's your mindset. You put yourself in the position, you know, you cast a big net, and this stuff comes to you. You're fortunate that you were there. But it starts with the thinking the luck happens to find you, and you tend to be a magnet for it. And because the way you think, not because, you know, oh, I just got lucky and I met this client. Well, you were in the right place to meet that client, and you were ready to receive them.

You create your own luck in that you, like you said, you create opportunities.

Yeah.

Go ahead, Abby.

Sorry.

Yeah.

No, no. Sometimes I think entrepreneurs, you know, some people sometimes are not, you know, wanting to just. You'd come out if you don't talk about luck. I think sometimes you come out looking too, I don't know, like an ass or something. Yeah. Yeah.

So you go or something. Yeah, that's how I usually look.

So you just, you know, you want to definitely, you know, something out there is. Is. Is benefiting you and you. So you don't just take all the credit yourself.

That's correct. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You have to. You have to stumble into the right opportunity. The. The trick I find is just stumble a lot and then. Yes, eventually.

True.

Yeah. You'll find the right.

Just like playing a lot of hands at blackjack or. Yeah. Or. Or investing in private. Investing in a lot of companies. One of them will hit it big. Right. So you just have to keep on at it. But there's a lesson in there, too, is that. Because one of the things that. Is that I've done so many different things, right. Sometimes I'm going along, and some of the mistakes that I've made is that I've gone along, I've started, I had a good idea, and then I did it for a little bit, and then I gave up too quickly and I moved on to something else. Whereas if I had perhaps stuck to that. That business, you know, who knows where I would be?

And what do you think that reason for. For giving up? Because, I mean, I can. I have some similar, you know, issues with that too, where you go a certain point and you're like, well, is it better to keep investing your time and money? Is this it? Or do I need to focus somewhere else? And what is it you think that causes that?

I have a feeling that it is. It's a combination of whether, you know, having some self doubt. And if you're a smart person, then you have to have doubt. Right. Because you're thinking about all the things that can go right or that can go wrong. And sometimes you listen to those things that can go wrong more than the things that can go right. And you try. So you have to have some confidence that you're on the right path. And then, yeah, I don't know. It hasn't. Sure. Why have I moved on from certain things that I shouldn't have? Perhaps is that because I think I didn't believe in my own self, in those. For those things, even though I had the idea to begin with, is that I should have just kept at it, but I didn't. And, and it's a very hard one, but when to give up and when to. When to continue. Because you've already sunk all this time. But you know, what I found is that what I've sunk, I've sunk already. So it doesn't factor into, like, there's many times that I've spent a lot of money in development of some, you know, plastic mold or something else. And then I. And people always say to me that we've spent all this money already, can't get. Let's just, let's just spend another 5,000. But I just think of it as, hey, I've already. That money that I already spent is gone. So now we're just talking about the next 5,000.

That's a really good lesson as well, is that, you know, it's okay to give up sometimes, especially when you think. But it is, it is tough to, to make that distinction of okay, am I just. Because as an entrepreneur, and it sounds like you and I do similar stuff where you're so many different opportunities, you think about, I could do that. We ought to do this. And it's very easy to get spread thin. Yeah. You know, so that's a, That's a tough thing.

How do you, as someone who has made a career of spreading himself thin, I'm curious how you keep that in check. Like what, what things do you do to ensure that you don't spread yourself too thin or don't you worry about it?

I'm not very good at it, to be honest. With you. But what I have, what I'm sure I always struggle with is saying no. I think that's one of the hardest things, is to say no to things and to have the confidence in what you're already doing is all right. And then not to say, you know, there's a movie out called yes man, you know, with Jim Carrey, and he says yes to everything. Right. And it creates a life for him that is totally different than the life he was leading. And I think in business, if you just kept saying yes all the time, then you're not going to be focused. And one of the lessons for that I would. That I wish that I knew early on was where, you know, where to say no more often and to not try to, you know, please too many people. Yeah, yeah. It's hard. It is, right?

Especially. Yeah. When you're in business for yourself and especially. I mean, I think all of us in some way kind of started in that we're going to help people fix their computers. Realm. Right?

Yes.

And so a. That is. Is fueled by being a people pleaser. Right. And also. Also fueled by. By never turning down a gig. Right. Somebody calls and says, my computer's broken, it's like, well, right. That could be 200 bucks. I should go get that. 200 bucks. Right?

Yeah.

And so it's really hard. Yeah.

I used to say yes to people and it was like midnight and so. Of course. But that, you know, that was a different time. You know, if you're starting out in business, you know, you obviously have a little bit of. Of sales orientation to you.

Sure.

And you know, just salespeople like dogs, you know, you have either treat motivated or you're praise motivated. Right. That's in order.

Both.

Yeah. Yeah. And so as. And you have to be, you know, you have to have that self gratification that comes from the praise that you solve the problem or the customer happy. Yeah, no, the customer's praising you.

I got this.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So he's. He's praise mode. He's praise motivating you. And then the treat is the money. Right. So you need that also. And so. But you got to say no sometimes, even though you want that treat, but you just, you can't.

I think that comes with. With time.

Yes.

Becomes easier. You know, in my experience, it's. It's much easier to say no now than it was, you know, ten years ago.

Whatever.

Yeah, you know, totally.

Yeah. Well, you know, a part of it is you don't know when you're just starting out in business, you don't know where the next thousand bucks is going to come from. And so you're hungry. Yeah. And so to say no could mean, you know, the phone's. There's no guarantee the phone's going to ring tomorrow. But it did ring today. You know what I mean?

It could be midnight. It's midnight. But it rang.

But it rang. This is not bad. Yeah. Yeah, but it is bad at times. I mean, like you said, you got to learn to balance it.

It can get bad because I had a stage where I, you know, I was just taking, like, any and every gig, and I was just like you were talking about. I would just say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes to. And then you don't have a. You know, you. You forget about life. And so you got to have. And then you. You. Also bad for you as a business person because you're not getting a spot. You're reading, for example. Yeah. Or you're not doing something completely different that actually helps you to spark other ideas. So you got to get. You can't always be working, which I wish that I could follow my own.

Well, it's hard. I mean, but, you know, it's a blessing and a curse. Right. You really enjoy what you do, which in turn causes you to work more. But that. I say work in parentheses, you know, because there's varied descriptions of that, and I often don't think. I'm like, is this really work? I mean, this is great, you know, Right.

You. You touched on something there, Abby. That. That is a topic we've explored a little bit, Shannon, but we've kind of had on the list of something that we'll probably explore a lot more, and that's stopping working or doing something else. And you mentioned reading as something to give you that spark for the next phase of whatever it is you're gonna do or a refinement to what you're doing. But you need that distance to give you the ability to think of these things. What you mentioned reading. Is there anything else that comes to mind that you. That, you know, works well for you to give you that space?

I think you have to. If you can, and if you can afford it, you should do something completely different from your work. It doesn't. It could be a sporting activity, or you could go dancing or. I mean, anything that has nothing to do with your work. And then that's when you will get something. You know, your brain will create something for you to think know. That'll then come back. When you come back to your Work if you just have only thinking. If you just have. It's like tunnel vision, I think. So you got to break and do something else. And I don't think that's something like, okay, I went home. Like, sometimes I wish that I didn't take my computer home, actually.

Yeah, sure.

There was a time when I wasn't taking my computer home and I would just. When I was home, I was home and I wasn't working.

That's nice.

And, and now I. Sometimes I find myself in the morning, I'm. I'm answering emails and then next thing you know, it's PJs and you're 11 o', clock, you know? Yeah.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

I can remember Dave talking to you years ago about taking long drives when we were. I was traveling a lot and, you know, being on the freeway and you, Abby, you mentioned tunnel vision. Sometimes that, that Highway 5, you know, tunnel vision out here, you know, it's our big, long highway. There's nothing there. Yeah, some stinky cows, you know, some fruit trees and stuff. But just especially at night for me, sitting there and just. Your mind just starts to wander and it really can lead you to some, you know, incredible places. And to your point, you're. You're disconnected from everything. Maybe not so much anymore with your smartphone in your pocket, but hopefully, you know, if you can get away from that and really, you know, spend some time.

Sometimes, like, I go on a drive, but I don't listen to the music. Yeah, I just, I'm just driving. I turn the music off and then you're just thinking. Yeah. You know, but, but, but I think it's. But then your brain still comes with business thoughts, right? You gotta do something else.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I find that I have to focus if I find an activity that, that takes my entire focus. And driving can be that at times. Again, it depends. Being in the shower can be that. But, but also, like, like you said, playing a sport. I'm a drummer now. Of course, that's its own problem because then I get offered gigs and I, you know, don't turn those down and. And it becomes its act of playing the drums and not necessarily the business that's around. It is that same kind of, you know, I'm totally focused. And so it does force me to stop thinking about work. And that's, That's a good thing. It, you know, it really.

It is.

Yeah.

Yeah. Actually, speaking of shower, like, so one of the, one of the luxuries that I, or that I. That I afford myself is that I. This is probably not a good thing to say on a radio. It's a drought with a doubt going on. But I take extremely long. I mean, my family complains about this.

Right.

Really long showers. But that's because I'm not. Because I'm so dirty or anything, because I'm just thinking a lot. And it says in. And that's one time when there's nothing. You cannot be doing anything.

Yeah, that's good.

And then you can actually plan out your day. You think about things, you know, and so I use that time. And then it's, it's, it's shameful how long my shower is.

The water is also quite hypnotic. It sort of brings you to a different state of mind.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

It's. It's kind of like your isolation tank thing.

I've done it, but yeah, I've. I fairly regularly. I, I do those. They call them, you know, sensory deprivation tanks, but they're not. Insulation tank is probably a better term. I'm sure you guys have them out there, but that's never done it.

But I'd like to try it sometimes.

Get a massage.

Yeah, same kind of thing. Yep.

Yeah.

And I actually find that once I had multiple businesses, you know, I could disconnect from one and in doing work on another, I often would come full circle and go, oh, that's what I need to do in this one, you know, or I can, I could. That's a great idea.

Let.

Let's push it across these different things. So, you know, that was helpful for me too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sometimes when you have multiple businesses, if, if they're in the same space, then that's kind of good, you know? Yeah, I don't. I haven't ever had a situation where any of the businesses that I was involved in was not in the Apple space. Oh, okay. So, you know, you're always learning from thinking of ways that one could apply to the other thing or, or sell one thing over there and things like that, so. But I've never. I wish sometimes that I would have a completely different thing.

It's hard and I mean, I've tried as well, and I am in a similar space and most of the entities I've been involved in have been there.

But the.

I came to a realization that.

At.

Some point everything I was doing required a box to ship. So I started looking for other businesses I could be involved in that had similar logistical requirements. Something very lightweight but high value. And that way we were able to Find a few things that were successful and stuff. And it's worked out really well.

Oh, that's cool. So, hey.

Okay, so we talked a lot about all kinds of stuff. This is a question that we, we think we want to ask. You know, all of our interview subject is this. You know, what advice would you give the Abby of from 20 years ago that's just starting out, the guy that's, you know, hustling with ice and those kinds of things. What would you tell yourself if you, if you could do that?

So I think I've touched on a few of those things. I would say I should have said. I would tell myself 20 years ago. And I'll tell everybody, actually that you got to say no more often because everybody else is, is, is. But you know, is taking up for them. Is. It's. It's for them, it's the important thing. But for you, you might have 100 things going on and then they add 100 first thing. And they always give you the pressure. Oh, it's just a little bit of time. Don't worry about it. Yeah. But you have to say no. I think saying no no is one of the hardest things to learn. And it's, you can tell somebody who is just starting out that, okay, say no. And they're never going to actually either say no or get that they need to say no.

Yeah.

Because they just want to make that extra money. Sure. So I just wish that I would say no. No. To even know the opportunities. You know, I had a great. I give you a good example. This is an example involving Steve Jobs. Okay. Which. Which I should have said no. Okay.

Okay.

So in, in 2009, we had invented the U socket. Okay. Okay. Which was the USB outlet with the.

That you put in your, in your home and it has an outlet plugged in it.

Okay. Little shameless plug there.

Yes, that's good.

And at the same time, at Macworld, we had also introduced a new type of case for your laptop made out of a product called Invisible Shield. Okay. And so at that Mac World, this was, I think the 2010 Mac world it was University acknowledged that Fast Mac had kind of won the show. We had so many best of show awards from different publications at that show. We had just too many good things. Okay. We had also introduced at the show a iPhone remote control for your tv.

I remember that. Yeah, yeah.

So we have three hit things, right? Yeah. But the item that, you know, that changed that changed the world in a sense as the outlet. Right. Which we should have kept going with and we should have said no to the other product, even though they were really good. Okay. Right. And so what happened is that. So. And we had actually started to say no to the case that was made out of this special material. I don't know if you saw this or you were banging with it.

Yeah, I remember that.

Oh, with the hammer. Of course. How could you forget? Right? It was an awesome demo.

Yeah. Yeah, thanks. So we should have said. But I should have. I was. So I was starting down that path. Say no to that. Let's focus on this outlet. And then what happens is that we get a phone call from. From somebody who was. Somehow it came to the attention of Steve Jobs that this product existed.

The invisible shield.

Yeah. Okay. And the case could be banged with a hammer. Right. And so he made like a casual comment that says, wouldn't it be great if you could make a case out of that same material for the iPhone? And this was the time when they had that iPhone4 controversy where they were giving out free cases to people. I don't know if you guys. So. And it's amazing, by the way, what happens at Apple when Steve Jobs says something or used to say something. Yeah. Because we were trying to talk to people at Apple about trying to do something with this material, and they were not very interested. Okay. But the minute that somehow that was, I think this March or April of that year, the minute that he made some sort of a comment. Right. It was just amazing how many meetings were all of a sudden available and people would. All kinds of people were talking to us.

Powerful.

Right. And it was all because he made this one comment, and then everything was all geared towards this demo.

Okay.

Right. And we had to give a demonstration to Steve. Not me personally, sure, But. But somebody else was going to give a demo of this product, and he had to have it by a certain date. Right. And so we stopped everything that we were doing. Right. To focus on this, the Steve Jobs demonstration. We made one mold, but just in case the mold didn't come out, we made a backup mold. Can you believe that? That's a lot of money was wasted on this. Right. And in the end, nothing really came of it. Okay. So we didn't get the demo go off. Okay. The demo. There was something. I think he got sick or something happened. So it actually never. The whole thing. The meeting with Steve Jobs never happened.

I see.

And we never got a chance to show him. Okay. But the product was made. The demo was made. And then we actually showed it at the next year's Mac World. But anyway, the point is that that summer, everybody was waiting for the U socket. Okay. And there was a lot of talk on Engadgeted and all that, hey, this product is vaporware. But. But what they didn't know is, as a company, we were a small company. We were distracted by the. But everybody who's in the Apple business has this dream, right? I want to work with Steve Jobs. Sure, sure. So we got distracted, and instead of focusing on the product that was, you know, that we should have been on, we were taken off, you know, but that's when we should. That's when I should have said no. Yeah. Notice, taking, notice. Steve Jobs is a hard thing to sue.

Like he said himself, it's always easy to connect the dots after the fact.

Yes.

Comment from his book. And so, you know, you can't beat yourself up too bad.

But. Yeah. So that's what I would tell. If I could say no to myself.

Yeah.

If I could tell myself just to learn to say no. I still struggle with that today. Yeah.

So that's great.

I would say that to the abbey of 20 years ago. I would say that to the abbey of, you know, two days ago, this afternoon.

That's cool. That's great.

Well, thank you for saying it to us, Abby.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that's. That's great. Well, you know, we really appreciate you just coming up and spending your time the afternoon with us. Some great stories, really good lessons. You know, I've always admired your success and all the stuff that you've done and the products you put. Put together. And it's great, you know, being able to sit and talk with you on the show.

Thank you for having me. And I think this is a great idea to help, you know, people in small business. And I think everybody could learn from you guys and other people you're going to have on. On how to, you know, build their business or grow their business or even start a business.

That's right. Yeah. We love talk. We love talking about it. Awesome. Well, thanks, everybody. And any comments or questions and, you know, questions for Abby or for any of us is feedbackba podcast.com. we'd love to hear from you and we appreciate the feedback we've been getting. We talked about the. The reward and praise, you know, part of things, and we love that stuff.

So, yeah, thanks for listening, folks. Thanks for coming, Abby. This is great. And we'll see you next week.

Take care.