The Best Small Business Owner Interviews of 2016 –  Small Business Show 99

The Small Business show, episode number 99 for Wednesday, December 28, 2016. Greetings, folks, and welcome to. To the Small Business show here at businessshow Co. The show by, for and about small business owners. Yes. Those of us that are just out there making things work, making a living, hopefully making a living for our employees and having fun while we do it. Here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in Concord, California, I'm Shannon Jean. At least here, I think. I think that's who I am.

I think that's where you are. Yeah.

Yes. Yes. A lot of things. It never fails that when we start recording all kinds of beeps and things start happening on my computer.

Oh, yeah.

People trying to connect with me.

Yeah. My world lights up. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So how are you this after Christmas.

Yeah.

Week. How you doing?

I'm good. I'm good. It's, you know, it's a. I think I mentioned this when we were talking last time, but it's never really a down week for me. Not that. Not that it would be anyway. If I'm in the office, I'm just doing stuff, but. But I leave on Monday to fly out to Las Vegas for ces. I guess you don't call it the Consumer Electronics show anymore. It's just ces.

Yes, yes, yes.

So it's. There's a lot going on, you know, but it's good, you know, it's fine. It's actually kind of nice. Many people are sort of out of commission this week and out of pocket, and that makes it a little easier because I get transacted less and I can get some of my prep work done for. For heading out.

That's cool. Yeah. Yeah, we've been really busy, too, trying to get things done. We're trying to wrap things up so we can head up to Tahoe for a few days here for New Year's. And it's been really busy, too. Yeah. Lots of stuff trying to squeeze in there. And since we're on episode 99, I thought it would be cool if we took some time this episode and maybe next episode for 100 to do kind of a year and review show or a couple of shows and talk about some of the highlights of the year.

Yeah. Well, we've got a lot of new listeners out here and I know everybody hasn't listened to every show, so. Yeah. So let's talk about it. I feel like we've got three different types of shows. We do our interview shows, certainly. Then we have shows where we just blather. On about our personal lives or not our personal lives, but our personal businesses.

Yes.

And then there are those shows that are the kind of advice and how to types of things where we're sharing tips and all of that. And obviously all of these things intermingle into every episode. But in order to break them out for the purposes of this discussion, that's kind of what we've done, folks. Let's start with interviews. And if I may, Shannon, I would love to start with the one I feel like I have to say it's one of my favorite interviews of the year only because I constantly think back about it and it was the one that we did with the guy that founded Jungle Scout, Greg Mercer.

Yeah.

And we did it back in August. I liked this interview partially because it was so full of tips and real hard information about how he did what he did and how you could follow at least. I mean, I haven't tried yet, so I don't know if you could take his steps and follow them through to fruition, but it certainly sounds like you could. Yeah.

And the thing I love about Greg is, you know, I stumbled on to Jungle Scout as, I mean, I do a lot of business in various marketplaces and learning more about Amazon and you know, like ebay provides a service that gives you access to all their data, which is phenomenal. It's called Terapeak and it is one of the keys to the kingdom if you are trying to learn about marketplaces or e commerce in general to really see, you know, not just what things are advertised for or what you think things are going to sell for, but real world data about trends and demand and really helps me make buying decisions more than anything else what we're going to try to sell. And so Greg has a similar company, Jungle Scout, that pulls data from Amazon and you know, he kind of has to interpret it a little bit because it's not exact but it's pretty accurate. And you know, not only is he have this service that he sells this, but he's lived it and he does it and he's got a great set of tutorials or a real world example up on his site@junglescout.com where you can go through and he just picks a few products and ultimately decides on one. In this case it was some bamboo marshmallow skewers of all things.

Yeah.

And remember he made that comment, he said if your friends think the product you're selling is cool, you're selling the wrong product.

Right, right. Well, and that's it. Yeah, he built this for himself. But he's, He's. He's so matter of fact about it. And what I loved was he said, well, yeah, you know, I needed to. I mean, Jungle Scout exists to find new products to sell, but this, this started because he had. He found one product to sell without Jungle Scout because it didn't exist.

Yes.

And. And then went through the whole process of, okay, well, I want to have this thing made, so where do I go to have it made? Well, Google will tell me. And so he searched and he found Alibaba, and that got him to a thing. And then his Alibaba vendor said, who's your freight forwarder? And he said, I don't Google. Freight forwarder. What does that mean? And he never let the. So much of. I feel like my own personal limitations are that if I don't know the answer, I feel. And this is stupid, but I feel like, well, I should be ashamed that I don't know the answer or I should know the answer, whether I'm ashamed or not, you know, but I should know the answer. And he doesn't experience that. He's like, well, I don't know the answer. Let me go find it. And he goes and finds it. Okay, this sounds good. And then he just does it. And they ask, where do you want your stuff delivered? I don't know. I guess my house. He had it all delivered to his house. Yeah. Now he sends it straight to Amazon. And he learned along the way, as we all do, but he. He has that. I call it child's mind or beginner's mind, that just, oh, okay, fine. Let's keep going. We all experienced that in the beginning of our businesses. I think out of that interview I took a lot. I realized, well, if I had to pack up what I'm doing currently tomorrow, I could certainly go and sign up for a Jungle Scout account and probably start making money pretty quickly. I'd lose some along the way. That's okay.

That's how you learn. Right?

That's how you learn. Child's mind, of just, you know, remembering what it was like at the beginning. I liked it. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think it's a perfect example of, you know, figuring something out for yourself and then realizing, hey, there's got to be other people out there that would benefit from this. And, you know, it totally makes sense, and it's pretty transparent. He's got a lot of stuff up on junglescout.com that's free and you can use it, and it's very Useful without having to pay for it. And then there's some advanced things that you can subscribe to that you know, help you out. And he's, he's, I think he's an innovative guy. And you know, he, he made the, you know this phrase on the, on the show where he was escaping employment and I thought that was powerful, you know that. Yeah, I always say, you know, entrepreneurs are guys, you know, and that will work 80 hours a week to avoid having to work 40 hours a week. Yeah, you know, that's right.

For somebody else.

Yeah, yeah, that's true. So I would definitely recommend you jump back and list and we're going to link all this in the show notes for this episode. And you definitely want to listen to Greg's story and not only will it motivate you, but you may find something useful up on his site as well.

Yeah. The next one on our list was the interview we did with Harold Cinno. I'm probably Cinao Cinahl. Yeah. Who created a company called MaxStation and then sold that off and decided to take some time and travel the world with his family. And I mean he worked hard for decades with Max Station, but it was very interesting to kind of hear him talk about. I called it a victory lap at the time. I don't know that that's the right thing.

I like that though.

It's got a ring to it.

Yeah, yeah, it was good. I mean he did it in a way that we took his kids out of school and they homeschooled him. They went to Europe with a one way ticket, bought an rv, drove around, stayed at different places and it just sounds awesome. And along the way his kids explored some stuff and found some things they were interested in and they've actually started a business related to that stuff. We're going to have him on the show next year. Harold's a really a great guy. I've known him for years. Done, you know, always open to trying new things and you know, now he's in the real estate business and doing some development and everything and, and I do think that is a great way to do it. Is, you know, watch. And he admitted he's like, hey, I was away from my family a lot while I grew my business and this was my opportunity to really connect with my kids while they were still young and their early teens and head out for a year and learn something. I thought that was really cool.

Yeah, I agree. That one stuck in my head. All right, the next one on our list is the one that we did with Paul Goodman from Pura Vida Bracelets back in March. Why don't you take this one, Shannon?

It's such a great story. I was speaking on a panel at a PayPal conference, and Paul was on that panel as well. And, you know, I'm like, Mr. Question, you know, I started asking everybody, you know, what do you do and how did you get here and this kind of thing. And. And, you know, their story is just. It's fantastic. You know, they were hanging out down in Costa Rica after they graduated and, you know, met a couple guys on the beach that were, you know, locals that were selling these, you know, little bracelets. And these guys were homeless at the time. They were just living on the beach and trying to, you know, do whatever they could to make ends meet. And so this is the best part is because I could totally see myself doing this. Oh, well, how many of those bracelets do you have? And so they bought everything they had and took the whole tray or cart or whatever they had, and they came home and they built a business around it and started Pura Vida. And now they employ, I think, a couple hundred, or at least contract with a couple hundred people down in Costa Rica. And I'm sure they have a bunch of employees here. And these were the guys that really got my head spinning about the social media business because at the time they had 700,000 followers on Instagram and some crazy number like that on Facebook, and that was their big driver of business. And I just kept thinking, I have to get into this. I have to figure this out, because there's something to it here that I'm missing at the time. And we're going to talk about that later. But it was great to hear Paul's story and him and his partner and talking about walking around San Diego, you know, State University, and like, handing out these little string bracelets and asking people to go, you know, mention them on Facebook and this kind of thing. And it was awesome.

And this is where you guerrilla marketing at its best, right?

Yeah, yeah. And this was. We started talking about the beer test.

Yeah. These are two guys having a beer and they had an idea.

Yeah. And they executed.

And then they executed. Right.

That's the critical part. Because, you know, one of Dave's, you know, famous, you know, lines I really like is your ideas. You know, if you want it to be wor something, go write it on a hundred dollar bill. The idea is not worth much because most people can't execute, and so most.

People aren't willing to execute Yeah, I would say most people can execute. It's fine. It just takes hard work. You just got to commit. I mean, listen, if you take anyone and you put them in a box that's filling with water, they're going to figure out how to get out of the box.

They're going to execute.

Yeah, it's right. It's just deciding when you're gonna do that. And that's the man I've seen. And I mean, my businesses are examples of this. Yeah, I've seen average ideas work out just fine. Even crappy ideas work out just fine if you're willing to execute. And so much of execution you need to get a little bit lucky, but that's just opportunity meeting inspiration, right? Yeah. And so you need to. But you do, you need to get a little bit lucky and you need to get, you know, timing and all of that stuff needs to happen. But you really just need to have bullheaded persistence.

Yeah. You have to slog your way through it. And that's where most going.

Don't stop. Yeah.

Yeah. Most folks stop after a certain time because they don't get quite the results they want. Or rather than adjusting and continuing, they often kind of throw the towel in thinking it's, it's not going to work, you know. And so yeah, go back and listen to that Pura Vita interview and then jump on the website. You'll see quickly how these guys are now making their own clothes and everything. But it's a great example of using social media. It's fantastic. I'm very envious of their success, which is great.

That's great. Yeah, exactly.

Oh yeah, for sure.

All right, moving to Bob Gruel of Seapoint Business Advisors, episode 61 in April. What? I think you put that on the list, Shannon.

Yeah, yeah. I love that Bob is, you know, real grounded guy, you know, in my career of owning, you know, bunch of different small businesses over time, you, once you get to some level of success, you start getting approached often from companies wanting to help you sell your business. And you know, more often than not, these guys, these groups often want some money up front and they're kind of maybe not so maybe a little shady and it's kind of weird. But Paul, or I'm sorry, Bob, very grounded guy, very straightforward look at your business from a very skeptics viewpoint, which is what you need because that's how people are going to look at it from the outside and really successful down to earth guy. And he really spent the time with us talking about how to get your Business ready to sell it and what kind of things a business advisor or broker type person can help you with Everything from making sure your finances are in order and stated in such a way that they really reflect your business. You know, one of the things that many small businesses do, and we've talked about it and recommended it here is, you know, a lot of your expenses go through your business and it's part of leading that charmed life. All you know, on the up and up and normal expenses. But when you go to sell your business, you may need to restate some of those things to reflect the, the, your profits and that kind of stuff. So if you interested in that, you know, go back and listen to Bob's. The Seapoint business guy was great. Enjoyed it.

Yeah, yeah, it was a, it was a good. I liked it. That was good. The next one on my list is Paul Downs, the author of Boss Life. Paul. Paul was such an interesting cat. You'll listen to this interview and you'll hear him talk at first and you know, I love you Paul, but you kind of sound like Eeyore. He's just very like, oh, okay, you know, very just like whatever, but very successful almost. If you just sat and listened to it, you would think, wow, this guy's successful in spite of himself. No, that's not true. You know, he's a very astute cat, but very much not the small business owner. The prototypical small business owner. I mean, you listen to Shannon and I, right? These high energy crazy people can't stop talking like that. He's just like, yeah, well, you know, I had the opportunity to do this and so I did this and you know, I just put the numbers out there and people seem to like it. And you know. That's right. That's right.

Yeah. You need to read this book. I mean this book is unlike any. The book Boss Life is unlike any business book you will ever read. I guarantee it. It is simply kind of a year in the life of Paul Downs business. He's in the furniture, primarily the conference table, but very high end specific conference room tables and business furniture and that kind of thing. The thing that impressed me, this is a guy that was going out of business and he reached out to the New York Times, Times small business blog and said, hey, maybe people would be interested in hearing about my company as I go out of business where I think the natural reaction is like, stick your head in the sand and like, I don't want anybody to know that I'm going out of business. He reached out and built a career around it.

Yeah.

And wrote this book and then saved his business, you know, and it's not a terribly uplifting book, and maybe that reflects his personality, but it is. I found it very inspiring because I have experienced so many of the things he really discussed. And I can remember telling my wife, I'm like, man, this is us at certain points of our career. This is us right here. And so I reached out to Paul and just started talking to him, and then he was gracious enough to come on the show. And it's a very worthwhile 30 minutes of your life to listen to his story and go read that book. It's fantastic.

Yeah, the book. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Book was great. All right. Brian O' Connell from Maris Engineering was episode 63 from back in April as well. What an interesting. Like, the biggest thing that I learned from that was the concept of essentially what you and I do for each other and for anybody that wants to ask here. And that's creating that advisory group, right?

Yeah, for sure.

I guess he joined an advisory group that kind of beat him a little bit.

He did, yeah, they didn't. You know, he. He was growing out of control, and it was really a challenging time for him. And, you know, this advisory group that he had joined had said, hey, you need to hire a cfo, like, right now. And he kept putting it off, thinking he couldn't afford it. And then when he went back to the meeting, they said, hey, you know what? If you're not going to hire a cfo, there's like. I think it was like, you know, there's no reason for you to come back here.

Yeah, don't come back.

Yeah, I mean, really hardcore, which is great. And so he hired a cfo, figured out how to make it work, and he says the best thing he ever did, and it helped them really formalize their business. And it's a great story in a business that I know absolutely nothing about. They're chemical engineers, and they primarily deal with water treatment stuff. And we didn't talk about it on the show. I don't recall, but I'm friends with Brian's brother. And one of the stories we always talk about is they figured out how to take what used to be a 50 gallon drum of material that would be shipping all over the country, all over the world, actually, to ship to treat water. And they figured out how to make it a pill that they could just put in an envelope and mail.

Yeah, that's.

That's some badass stuff right there.

That's Pretty badass. That's right.

So, yeah, so that was good. And it is definitely a great lesson on. We always talk about having an advisory group, whether it's a paid group, whether it's your, you know, unofficial board of directors, your attorney, maybe an insurance guy, maybe a real estate guy, whoever it is, your banker.

Yeah.

That somebody can somebody, you know, even just listening to this show and calling in or emailing us, that kind of thing. You know, you need to have some outside voices that can help guide you and, you know, help motivate you and also tell you when you're not doing stuff. Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's cool. Yeah, exactly. Tim Cody, episode 77 back from. What was that? July? I guess.

Yeah.

Yeah, he. The thing I liked about Tim was, I mean he created, he had a. He had a decent idea, but man, execution, right? I mean this is like execution on rails in. And the way he built that company. And really his biggest asset was the right to do business in all the states that he had earned the right to do business through licensing and all of that. It makes his business this massively valuable thing. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. And they basically created a bank, if you will, but just focused on handling foreign exchange. And Tim is another guy. I've had many beers with Tim and we're always talking about ideas and this concept for this business is one over. You know, he had over a few beers and they just put it together and executed it correctly. And you know, he told. And he also told a story of the bartender at the place they used to go and you know, meet the bartender, asking him if he could interview for a position. And Tim kind of, you know, maybe, whatever. And then finally, okay, great. And it turned out that the bartender came and really put in the time and effort and. And became their number one employee and you know, is still there today.

I know.

So it was great. It was great.

Yeah. Talk about the beer test, right? I mean, this is a guy serving you beer.

Yeah, that's right. And. And you know, they're. This is a very large company now and you know, does worldwide transactions and he's just a regular guy. You know, his kids, my kid and his kid play lacrosse and then same team. And so I love hearing about, you know, again, I'm a question guy. So I'm on the sidelines asking people what do you do? You know, that's my go to thing. And if you, if you, you know, own a small business, you're probably going to come on the show. So as I, you know, lean on you a little bit. But, yeah, it's a. It's a really good show to listen to about execution and also about, you know, I have a tendency to look at large companies and forget that they were small at one time. You know, it. And I often overlook that. And so I'm reminded, you know, a show like that with Tim Cody is. Here's a guy that's just like you and I, you know, that just put in the time and effort and had a niche and, you know, did really well with it.

Yeah, yeah, very interesting. I've always said I don't want to get into a business that requires, you know, like. Like overreaching, licensing and all that stuff, but Tim did that, and that's part of his asset right now is that there is a barrier to entry.

Yes, that's correct. It's a niche. It's not so easy.

It's not. Yeah, right.

But then he tells stories, you know, about how they were heading to the casinos to get cash and overnighting FedEx envelopes. This is, you know, 20 years ago when they were starting a business and this kind of thing. So there's some really fun stories in there as well.

Yeah, that's worth listening just for that one. That's right.

Yeah. We always ask, you know, tell a story about your business, something creative, and usually it makes. Often it's the best part of the interview.

Totally agreed. Speaking of stories, the last interview we have on our list here is the one that we did with Jason Snell back in. I think that was March, right? Yeah, it was March. Of course, Jason started at. Well, I mean, he started before that, but he had a long history at Macworld and Mac User before that, and then left Macworld kind of as the major changes were happening there, and started out on his own. And after being a company man for literally decades, he went out on his own and started a website called sixcolors. Com. And he's been doing well, but it takes a whole different set of skills, as most of us listening to this show know, to run a small business, because now all the hats are yours. And it was interesting hearing him talk through that. And he's been doing a great job with it. Obviously, he leveraged the following that he built up during his time at Macworld. But, you know, I think that's. That having built that following is a testament to him more than it is to Macworld anyway. But the fact that he went and leveraged it and kind of gambled on that, that's a good thing to See?

Yeah, well, yeah, And I put this on the list for me, because it really speaks to being resilient and finding your way. And even though you may have worked for somebody for decades, to be able to roll out and start your own thing and be in control of your own destiny, it's a powerful thing, and it's a difficult thing to make that first step. But often you talk to people that have done it, and then they look back and go, oh, I wish I would have done it sooner.

And.

And the other part I really like about that interview, and I'm not sure we talked about it on the interview, but it. It really speaks to the. This concept of a thousand true fans. And, you know, there is. What's the guy's name? Let me see if I can get his name here. Kevin Kelly. He came up with a concept called that you could start a business and be very successful and financially successful as well, if you could just find a thousand true fans that were willing to pay you for whatever it is you did, whether you were a blogger, a painter, a musician. And, you know, I think that, you know, he's. Jason's on that journey, you know, once you get to that. And there's a few guys online that I pay a monthly fee to get their newsletters, that kind of stuff, and I think it really works.

It does. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Very, very interesting stuff. And we love learning from these people, but we also do learn from each other, and we've learned some things that we can share with you. So kind of bridging the gap between the interviews and the how to's, let's talk a little bit here and maybe wrap this show up with some of the things that you and I have done this year. Back in February, we actually interviewed each other.

Yeah, that's right.

Where we decided it was time for our stories. They had sort of trickled out here and there, but we decided it was time to dig in. And I actually learned some things about you, and I think that the reverse was true. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Because you don't. Like you said, you start with the. What do you do? But usually it sort of trails off and you don't really learn the whole story unless you sit somebody down and say, I want to learn the story.

Yeah, that's right. And, you know, up on our website at BusinessShow Co, there's a page that kind of like, you know, who are these guys? And Dave's background and mine as well. But no, it was a great show, and we're able to just talk about our business. I mean, who are we to sit up here and talk about this stuff, right? And that's one of the reasons I always say I'm learning the most on this show and I'm getting the most out of it and. And hopefully everybody else is as well. I would think by the subscriber growth that that's true, but that's a great episode to listen to if you'd like to learn more about our backgrounds and our history.

But. Well, we both talked about starting businesses this year, and I want to talk about both of those because they both took very different paths. But you started Shannon's Closet for lack of. Is that the name of the business? Is that the.

No, no, no, no. We started a company called. And we've always had a trading business. And what I mean by that is I like to buy and sell. I'm interested in the. Deeply interested in the delta between what I can buy something for and what the market will pay for it. And so I'm always looking for things and experimenting with. I have a warehouse and a forklift and a bunch of stuff. I try different things. And so after that Pura Vita interview, when I saw the power, I knew we do social media for other businesses and it's okay. But when I really saw how they were doing, I said, look, I've got to get into this. So we have some connections in the fashion business. And I wanted to get into the business that was something emotional, which is kind of like the Mac business, the Apple business, at least it used to be. Maybe not so much anymore, but something you're emotionally attached to, something that's lightweight. And so we picked handbags and also something that had a high value, or let's say I perceived value, but perhaps that I could use my resources to get at a certain price point, which we did. So we started selling on certain platforms. Poshmark has been the one. And I wanted to start a business I could just run on my phone just yet. No website, no anything, just be everything with my phone. And we've done that. We do some stuff via web browser on a computer, but 95% of it is all done on the phone via apps. And, you know, We've got about 31,000 followers now since June, and we're moving product every single day. And I've had a great time. And, you know, it really helped to energize me. It gives me something else to do. Like you said, Dave, you know, we're. We're high energy guys that I get bored, you know, after a while when things start working, it's like, okay, this is cool. You know, so. So that was a good. We talked about that, and we touched base a little bit more, and I've had. It's been a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. And how about yours? You were. Now you talked about. And this. I think this business concept that you, you know, this expert witness business you were talking about is right up your alley because you're very analytical and also have a unique way of looking at things, and you're not afraid to step in and contradict someone or say, no, no, actually, it's this way.

Right.

Which is. Which is great. And I think a really good trade to have.

Yeah. So I started heading down the path. I actually, as I said, I was going to sign up with a couple of, you know, agencies, if you will, to sort of get the lay of the land and figure that out. And then my assumption was, down the road, I would probably, you know, break off from the agency, because why do I need them unless I found out why I needed them? And then, you know, knowing myself, I project down the road even further. It's like, okay, then I start the agency, and now I'm making money off of other expert witnesses. This is how things have gone. So it was like, all right, that's fine. But. But really I was getting into it because. Exactly like you said, it sounded like fun for me.

Yeah. Yep.

And then two weeks later, I got sued. It had nothing to do with the expert witness business, but it did sort of derail that, because getting involved in that while there's pending litigation is not. Not something I didn't want to. There was no reason to tarnish my. My reputation with people walking in the door. I think if I had already had an established business, this little thing. And I'll explain briefly what it is in a second, but sure. But this little thing that I have going would not really be a problem, but walking in the door, guy, that. And I talked to some people about this, and they agreed. And so I was like, okay, I gotta put it on hold and, you know, walk in the door. Who are you? Okay, here's my pedigree. Oh, okay. We still don't know you, but your pedigree certainly, you know, gets you further down the path. By the way, is there any pending litigation against you? Yes. Okay. You know, we'll move on. There's no. There's no attachment to me yet, so that's an easy dismissal. So it was like, all right, Crap, I gotta put that on the back burner. Yeah, no, I. Like you said, I'm not afraid to contradict people. And I was involved with actually a. Fantastic. And I do have to be careful what I say because I am under an injunction not to say anything bad about the company or the people involved. Not that I would anyway.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, you say that. Yeah. It's just not who I am. But also, I have a vested interest that I'm fighting to protect in this entity. So there's really no reason for me to speak poorly of it. But there was a disagreement, if you will, between two of us, three co founders, and it obviously got ugly enough that litigation was filed against me. And so we've been dealing with that and kind of, you know, that the wheels of justice, they move, but they move very slowly.

You'll get through it.

Well, and it's.

Oh, we will.

Yeah.

Yeah. And it kind of leads. You know, the last thing we had was our episode 66, where it was, you know, the subject line for that one is, talk about a crappy week. And I think I came into that. If I look at this picture, it's a picture of a hole in the floor with a river running through it in the back of my building.

Hang on one second, Shannon. Your Skype connection is just dancing on the edge of not okay. It's sort of been dancing there many times throughout the episode. But go ahead. I think we're okay. Yeah, go ahead.

I think we're okay. Yeah. And I just remember coming in and. And so I thought, well, hey, I've just had a horrible week. And you had had some issues as well. And we talk about, you know, again, because we talk about it all the time, you know, powering through your problems. And, you know, one of the issues that I always think about because I'm just a, you know, raging optimist, is not letting that. Being prepared for adversity. It's going to happen, and you can't get down. You just have to kind of, you know, don't be overly optimistic in how to handle it when things just don't go right because oftentimes they won't. And kind of back to your comments earlier about being successful or having your business successful is you just have to grind your way through it. And we, you know, we. We moved into here, we talked about some lawsuit issues and talking with your attorneys and. And we also mentioned, you know, the outside advisors again with the group again. So it was a good show. It was kind of varied. And there was some good tips in there, and it was great because I got to rant a little bit, so it was really nice.

Yeah, no, it was cathartic, for sure. We both needed it at the time, and everything's good. If anybody's interested in more of the details of what's going on, if you know me personally, feel free to ask. It's just not worth. There's too much dirty laundry here. But I will tell you that the project that we built was freaking awesome and still is. It's called scheduleme.IO is the URL that you can go to the engine there. It's freaking amazing. We built this thing that allows you to schedule meetings when other people have availabilities in their schedule without having to involve that person, as long as they've kind of given you the ability to do that via the cloud. And it all happens kind of instantaneously, and I'm pretty proud of it, actually. It's a pretty cool thing that we've built and.

Awesome.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, hopefully this litigation can not impede the progress of the project. So.

Sure.

Yeah, it happens.

It happens.

Oh, it totally. Of course. Of course it happens. You get strong personalities involved, and you got it. And, yeah, communication breaks down, and here we are.

Yeah. But, yeah, so we've kind of burned through about a half hour, so, you know, we've got a. Another set of, you know, shows we'd like to talk about and next week, and why don't we roll those into the next show?

Yeah, let's. Let's do that. We. You know, I think. I think just as a tease, the one that we're going to start with for you folks is the executive summary, because that is where. That's where the good stuff happened. That's where you get to pat yourself on the back for all the good stuff.

That's right.

That you've done. Because no one else might do that.

So.

Yeah, you got it.

Very good. Well, we're coming up against the end of the year then, right? Because this.

That's it. Happy New Year.

Happy New Year. And onward to 2017.

That's crazy. I'm looking forward to it. I have a feeling, you know, 2016 for us and our businesses, we actually had a ton of fun. Our revenues are down year over year a little bit. Yep. But. But profits were up and everybody's happy. No, that's good. Yeah. But. But in the last, like, six weeks, we've really paved a path through some hard work, but also just some. Again, fortuitous timing, circumstances that we were prepared to take advantage of. Advantage of. I don't, you know, it's. That's luck. But. But I feel like 2017 already is off to a fantastic start for us. So I'm, I'm, I'm really optimistic. In fact, I'm, I'm, I'm cautiously optimistic about next year, and I'm rarely cautiously optimistic, but I don't want to get ahead of myself, so.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's good stuff, man. Yeah.

Very good.

That's it, folks.

We will.

We'll see you next week, and we'll finish up up this little year in review. Find us at businessshow Co Go to businessshow Co Facebook to find our great small business support group. Tell us your stories from the year. Happy New Year, everybody.

Take care.

Of.