Welcome to our live show!

With Drink Up with co-host Adam Smith, myself Samuel Anderson, and Larry Rubin. Uh, welcome to, uh, Drink Up. We've been—

I—

man, it's taken a long time to get you here. I'm so excited to, to have you here. We've been having a nice talk here this morning. And, uh, first of all, why don't you introduce yourself? I know you're the leader and founder of Swipe It. Is that right?

That is, yep. Swipe It, uh, gift cards or swipeit.com. Um, we've been specializing in custom gift card programs for the little guys for the past 26 years. Um, basically, uh, we're a one-stop shop for gift cards. So basically our goal is to take one thing off the plate of the small business owner, which is gift cards, and let them concentrate on running their business, whether it be a distillery, a bar, a restaurant, any industry. Obviously we'll talk specifically to the beverages, but Yeah, we're here to help any small business out with their gift card programs.

Well, and just for full transparency, I said coupons and Larry corrected me. This is gift cards. This is not coupons. And there's a lot to be said about that. I told you earlier, I was at Best Buy and I had my $25 gift card that my wife had given me and I bought a battery. I actually tried to return a battery and he said, there's a 2-week policy, by the way. If you buy electronics from Best Buy, it's 2 weeks. So make sure you get that 2-year extended warranty because after 2 weeks, they're not taking it back. But anyway, I took my— probably took my gift card out. I gave it to them and I got $25 off. And it was an interesting question you asked me. I want to get into it a little bit. We'll talk about your company first. But one of the things I'd like to get into this morning is you said, well, did they leave any pennies on that card?

Yeah. So my 2 questions would have been, do you Did you use the full value? And you said yes, which was good for the consumer, you, not much the business. And then the second question I would have asked is, did you buy anything else?

Yes.

No. No. Okay. So, so, because the other big thing with gift cards is 90% of people who use a gift card spend above the value.

Okay.

So you walked in there thinking, I got to get a battery, I have $25. And now while you're in there, you know, their whole thing is, okay, I got, I got you in with the gift card. You grab the battery, hopefully you're going to grab 8 more things on your way to the register, and that $25 gift card now upped the purchase price to $87.

That's an interesting concept because I'll describe my trip. I went in there with the intent to return my battery and to get an upgraded battery and use my $25 gift card. But in my mind, I was going to— I did walk around Best Buy. And I was looking at those, like, those, uh, rings, those, uh—

Oh yeah.

You put on your finger to track your stuff, but they're like $4.99.

Oura, I think. Yeah.

Yeah, right. Whatever. So I was, I was looking, uh, to do that, but I'm just not— I wasn't ready to buy, but I was thinking about buying. So they did— that gift card did drive a trip, right, into, uh, Best Buy.

Well, now it would have been interesting though, like, what if that gift card was a $100 gift card and not a $25? Then you might have been like, okay, I have $75 extra towards that $499. Who knows?

Maybe. Yeah. And we use gift cards for our, uh, on one of our Italian restaurants here in, uh, Burnsville. We get them at Costco and we'll get, uh, and because it always says if you buy this gift card, you save 20%. So there's a savings by buying the gift card because it's really, you're getting $50, but it's only really costing you $40 for each one, or, you know, $35 or whatever. You're saving an extra $20. on the deal. So that and stuff, I'm interested in learning what that strategy is all about around gift cards. But tell me, let's step back. So when you and I initially talked, why the heck would anybody go into the gift card business? Is this something that you bootstrapped yourself as a founder from the ground up? Like, tell us a little about the history of the company, how you founded it.

Yeah. So actually, when I started, gift cards kind of did not exist. So when I first started, I started an off-campus meal plan for college kids. That's right. Uh, so back in 1998, probably 1997, some guy was walking around my college campus, uh, UMass Amherst, and he said, I have this card, and if you put money on it, you can use it at these 8 restaurants in the downtown area. And I was like, well, that's pretty cool. Now, my money was already tied up in the fraternity sloppy chef, so, um, I didn't have any money.

Mine was tied up in beer, but that's another—

Exactly right. Well, that's the whole part of the, uh, doing the meal plan with the fraternity house where you, you sign up for lunch and dinner, then you say, why don't you give me lunch back and there's your beer money. But anyway, hopefully my parents don't see this podcast.

Yeah.

Um, so this guy was saying, I have this program, and, you know, interesting. Uh, that was my junior year. Senior year he came back, he still had it. I actually had some friends who had joined the program, so it was a pretty cool concept. You know, instead of, um, putting money on the college meal plan, you'd get this off-campus meal plan, send the guy a check for $1,000, he put money on a card, you use it at the restaurants. So we're like, that's pretty cool. So when I graduated, me and a fraternity brother of mine said, why don't we try to start this in the place that has the most college kids in the country, which would be Boston, where we have like a million kids. And we were thinking, okay, that's good, tons of kids.

So multi-university kind of deal here you're going after with this whole strategy.

So we said, well, why don't we go to Boston College first? It's kind of a smaller college. My business partner was from that area. He actually knew some of the restaurant owners. So like, oh, this will be perfect. So we found a company to run the technology. We went out and got, you know, 8 restaurants to buy into our program. We found a company that would sell us a list of the college kids' home addresses. And we started Swipe It Meal Card. Um, and that's how we started. And after one year, we weren't making any money. Um, and so after—

They were all selling their books to buy the Swipe It meal card, and they were converting that Swipe It meal card to go into bars.

Exactly. Uh, so no alcohol was allowed to be used on the Swipe It meal card, and that actually was a huge, huge selling point for the parents.

Ah, got it.

Because that— what we could do—

They figured how to convert that meal card, I bet.

Well, Well, they probably just had to find a friend at the restaurant who was like, ah, I get it. But the sales point to the parents was this is money intended for food only. So that was like huge for them, right? Um, so we did Boston at Boston College, uh, then we went up to, uh, Ithaca, New York to Ithaca College and Cornell University, uh, then we went to the University of Maryland in College Park, uh, and then we went out to East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.

So we had a whole bunch of— Easy U!

Yeah, ECU, the Pirates. Great, great, uh, great area. So we had all these schools working and we were bringing in, um, some revenue, um, but it was very, um, labor-intensive, uh, you know. So each card was password protected. So on a Thursday night at 3 in the morning, uh, after the kids went to the bar and then they're getting the pizza and they forget their PIN number, they're like, oh, what's my PIN number?

So they're getting a call at 3 in the morning.

Oh yeah, yeah. You know, and this was back where we didn't have, you know, we were answering the phones.

Well, you didn't have the AI agent now exist.

We had none of that. We had none of that. So, um, and a college kid uses every penny because they have no money, so there's no float or unredeemed left. Um, and, and then eventually all the colleges were like, wait a sec, what are you guys doing off our kids? Well, why don't we just start our own program? And now every single university has dining dollars that you can use on campus and off campus, at the library, at the laundromat. Um, because it makes sense, like, and, and we couldn't compete with them because, you know, we had to purchase a mailing list, we had to mail it out. The colleges, they're already mailing a million things already, they already have the list, they already had everything. They basically just added an extra little box on the, on the brochure that says, give me $1,000 for your dining dollars. So you had to put—

you had to pivot your business. Every founder we meet, there's always a— oh yeah, a big pivot where something changes. They have— you have to make a pivot. So this is what your— was this your major pivot where your, your main business was actually this, uh, this gift card on campus?

Yeah. So yeah, yeah.

They're like, hey, I'm gonna take it back from you, right? So what did you do?

So the, the main— so we were fine doing that and we were running it, but then all of a sudden we're like, Home Depot started promoting this gift card. And then the turning point really was McDonald's got into the game. And if you remember, McDonald's was promoting what they called the Arch Card. Yes, they didn't even call it the gift card, it was the Arch Card. And so that was big because that was like, oh, so QSR, quick serve restaurants, little guys could do it. Don't have to be—

Adam, you're only 5 at the time, man. It's okay.

Correct.

Right. So at that point we're like, okay. So then we went back to one of our college guys and we said, hey, you know, we're running the college program for you. What do you think if we were to put, um, if you just did your own card just for you, kind of like what the big guys are doing? And they were like, What, we could do that? And we're like, yeah, we have that technology that we could do that. Um, so, and we had already kind of done a little— we had already, um, we'd start with Swipe It Meal Card. When we went and started going to the colleges, we, we changed the name from Swipe It Meal Card to University Meal Deal because we had more of a university feeling, and we had merged with one another company and they had their name. We thought that name was better. But then we had Swipe It Meal Card. So what we did is we took meal card out, threw technology in, and we made swipeit.com, um, the gift card program. And we had UMealDeal as the college program. And for the first year, we were running them both.

Interesting.

Um, and as we were trying to sell the gift cards though, literally we would walk in and we'd say, hey, you're a restaurant, wouldn't you like to have a gift card program? And they would look at us like we were crazy. They were like, Were Hallmark cards? Why would we be selling Hallmark cards? Like, we had— they had no idea.

You were the start of gift cards in the US.

I mean, I mean, for, for small guys, we were definitely the one of the first few companies that were doing it. And we— so at that point, we had to explain the concept. No, no, no, no, a plastic gift card like McDonald's, like Home Depot. So that's why it was so huge for us, for the Home Depot and McDonald's to promote it so much, because We could say like them, like them, because yeah, it was like a whole new concept. Like people were like, what do you mean?

This is really interesting. You had the big guy come in with the arch and you were able to actually leverage that to say it's just like them. And this is really interesting from a beverage standpoint. Like I'm a small beverage, I could just say, hey, look, I'm just like Kainoon. I'm literally going back and forth with my son this morning. He's doing some work for us with a product called Lake Hour. And Lake Hour is an RTD brand, right? And he goes, Well, that's just like High Noon, right? A competitor of High Noon. I'm like, yes, but they're smaller, right? And then he said, isn't it like 2 Hollywood producers that like founded this brand? So the people that, um, the, the Thunderbolt movie that's out, that's one of the founders, by the way.

Oh, okay.

That Lake Hours is the brand that we actually represent here in Minnesota, right? Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. But anyway, um, it, uh, it's really interesting. But, but again, he's It's like, just like, look at the big guy and then leverage the big guys, what you're saying, right? That's what you did.

Yeah. And then even, and then, you know, even, you know, 10, 15, 20 years later, I still say the same thing. Like, look at how are they marketing their gift cards? What are they doing? You know, these big companies put so much money in their research and development and all this and that. And it's like, okay, so if they put all this money into it and they realize that this is the best way to promote their gift cards, well, guess what? Why don't we copy that for the little guy? You know, so We're going to emulate what the big guys are doing, whether it's the technology, the exposure. We're going to bring this down to the little guy.

I remember our first conversation, you were emphasizing that we work with this, we work with the small guys. Is that still the case? Did I hear you correctly or what's the—

Yeah, I mean, listen, when Sierra Nevada calls you and says, hey, we need a gift card program, you don't say no. But our whole corporate culture is really for the small guys because first of all, they need more help. You know, they're, they're understaffed, they're un— they don't have the education. Not that they're uneducated, but on gift cards, they don't know all the best practices. Um, so, and they appreciate your help a lot more than the big guys, right? Um, you know, the big guy is kind of like, uh, they, they want your— they want your best practices, they want it discounted, and they want it yesterday. Where the little guy is like, thank you so much, how much does it cost, how can you help me? And, and, oh wow, you've really taken my business from here to here. Like, it was— it made— It It made a big difference for us.

Um, really interesting because I asked you, um, like we told you we need to promote our podcast to get like to meet people like you so people can actually see what you're, you know, all about and learn and stuff. So I'm gonna pause. I know because Adam's been here thinking.

I mean, yeah, when he starts to—

when he goes like works, looks left, looks up, that means he's ready for a question.

So Oh, you're not wrong, Sam. Um, no, so my question is like, and you were, you were touching on this, you touched on this before we got on, and everything you just said kind of helps illustrate it even further. So like, I, for example, I talked to a lot of brands right now who are trying to get into, um, you know, their local convenience stores or their local mom-and-pop, um, uh, grocery store or their local gyms or, you know, maybe it's a regional chain or something like that. And you mentioned, you mentioned, uh, the old Subway gift cards, how they had a sub and then a Pepsi on it. So people, you know, they were, they were kind of subconsciously drawn to, I'm gonna get a Pepsi, right?

Yep.

So for these brand owners, I mean, I'm— what I'm hearing you say, and I guess I'd love your, your opinion on this, is like maybe it's worth them as brand owners You know, in addition to everything else they have to do, going in and saying to these, these, you know, C-stores, these mom-and-pops, like, hey, what if we talked about gift cards that I as the brand owner can promote for your business as a whole? But on that gift card, in addition to other items that are maybe high margin for you, for your store, you include a photo of my product.

Yeah.

Right. Does that track? And at that scale, does that make sense? I guess, do the unit economics make sense when we're talking about like the hyper small and the convenience stores and things like that, right?

I mean, obviously the biggest thing is exposure for their, for their new item, you know, this new brand. So wherever they can get exposure would be great, uh, you know. And from the, the restaurant, the bar, the liquor store, you know, obviously they're hoping that that will bring in people. But if they can offset some costs, um, as well— so like, it's kind of just, it's an inexpensive way. Listen, we're going to provide you with 250 gift cards You know, it's short money. Um, we'll even come and do a photo shoot with our product and, you know, maybe, you know, you know, let's take a picture inside the bar. So now you're still getting your exposure as well. We're getting our exposure for the brand. Win-win for everyone. Um, now we can't— hopefully that means that, you know, I get that gift, I get the gift card, I see this new brand, I come in and hopefully I purchase it. But even if they don't, they're still getting the exposure. So the person who bought it got— saw that and he sees it, then he gives it to that person who got it. And then we know with gift cards, this guy might be like, I don't like that place. I'm going to regift it to somebody else. So it's all about how many eyes can we see on that brand? Um, so it's really about, you know, real estate. And so we're saying, why not sell real estate on your gift card? Uh, we can even sell real estate on a gift card carrier. Let's say that, you know, this has even more real estate that you could put it on the back and you could put a bunch of different brands on it.

So, um, you know, I find gift cards in my wallet all the time with the leftover dollars. And it's like, it's like an advertisement.

I pull it out. Oh yeah.

I take a look at that. And then all the schools come around and they give you, uh, the little thing you can scan too, you know, to promote, like, right, right.

Or— And if, and if you find an old gift card in your, in your underwear drawer, right? Yeah. Typically the first thing you probably do is you're going to go to their website and check the balance. Oh, is there any money on it? So now you've gone and now you've given their website exposure. They— oh wow, there's $4 on it. I mean, for me, I'm kind of weird. I go, I check my balance. Oh, there's $50. Then I click on the menu. Oh, they got some good food. And then I say, honey, why don't we go to this place? Um, you know, so now I know I got $50. I know exactly what I want to eat. Yeah, they've got a couple hits on their website. It seems like it's been a win-win for everyone.

Yeah, it's a marketing vehicle that keeps on working for you and it never, it never goes away. It's always there, right? I mean, it's funny you said that because I'm gonna go to my sock drawer after this and go look. Hey, let's go find it. But there's an expiration date, I'm assuming. There's at some point the value goes away.

Right.

That's, that's dependent on the merchant. So it's like, for us, we advise our clients to not expire their gift cards because— okay, so in the scenario is you find that gift card, you look it up, $50, you come in, they say, oh, I'm sorry, that's expired. Yeah, you're not happy. You're pretty upset.

What do you mean? I paid for that.

What do you mean? Yeah, well, that's always good too. You didn't really pay for it, you got it as a gift, but someone paid for it, right? Your buddy paid for it. So you might be so upset that you might actually just walk out. Like, you might not even eat there, you're so upset you walk out. And then you're gonna tell how many people about your, um, unfortunate experience at that restaurant? You're gonna tell a lot more people.

Yeah.

Now, if they turned and they said, that's expired, but we're gonna honor it anyway because you look— you're a great customer, you're gonna stay there, you're gonna spend the $50, you're gonna spend above the $50. When you leave, you're gonna call your, your your friend and say, oh man, I just went there, it was expired, but they took it anyway. So the extra goodwill you get over not expiring your gift card is so much greater than, oh well, I got my $50, but now I just created an unhappy customer who just told 4 people what a jerk I am.

Oh yeah, I am. So I gotta call out, uh, my partner Alicia Vargo. She says good morning to all. Uh, Alicia, uh, hello. Since you're here, uh, please, uh, you've been in the business a long time. Ask Larry about gift cards. I know you, you like gift cards, maybe. But, uh, anyway, uh, meet Alicia. Alicia, meet, uh, uh, Larry. Um, so I'm curious.

I'm gonna jump in real quick, Sam, before I forget. So years ago I worked at Best Buy, right? And I want to hear your perspective, Larry, on, on what I'll refer to, you know, uh, sarcastically as the dark side of gift cards. Right.

Yep.

Which is the fraud that, that often, you know, the older generation has, has kind of been the victim of lately, right? Um, and, and, you know, not that we need to, to go down that rabbit hole for the rest of the podcast, but just curious, you know, I mean, you mentioned like Sierra Nevada or some of these other bigger companies that you've worked with. How do you, how do you help them, given your experience in the industry, to mitigate that for themselves and their customers?

Right. I mean, so it is, it is a tough thing with fraud because, you know, the biggest thing is I get a stolen credit card, I use a stolen credit card to buy a gift card, and then I use the gift card to make a purchase. Right. And if I can do that fast enough before the person even knows their credit card was stolen, well, then they don't, they don't even know that that gift card was fraudulently purchased. So, you know, Unfortunately, this happens a lot, right?

Yeah.

Um, unfortunately, the credit card processors understand that and they keep putting in as many fraud control procedures in place that they can. So for instance, um, for our online, we use Stripe, um, and Stripe was one of the larger, um, online processors. I think Amazon used them. Everyone basically is using them. So they have their regular processing and then they have additional security features that you can add on Um, that's vetting everything. You know, it's looking at, um, down to the IP address that's being used to place the order, um, and looking to see where was the— where's the credit card, where's— you know, so there's a lot of things in the back end. Um, and the nice thing with Stripe is Stripe is this huge, huge, huge, huge database, right? Everyone's using Stripe. So if there's fraud occurred, it's, you know, they can track that over this whole network. So, um, you know, for us And we also flag high-volume gift cards that are bought online, you know, so we're not worried about a $25 gift card, but we're more worried about the, the $250, $500, $1,000 gift cards. Um, so we get an extra notification, a high-volume one, that we can keep extra eyes on it.

I'm gonna hang with you for a $2,000 gift card. Um, Alicia actually answered back, had an expired credit on a gift card recently and the store took it anyway. Thank you.

Right. So that comes down to customer service that they did the right thing. And so we heard about it. How many more people did she tell about that experience? She told everyone because she was happy that they took it. Where, like we said, if they said sorry, expired, get out, she's telling twice as many people about that poor experience. Yeah.

And actually, I think she called out Sama. I don't know, Alicia, what Sama is. That's a place, Sama. So she's calling out Sama.

Oh, right. Exactly. Exactly. You know, so the way we look at it is I sold the gift card to, to your buddy 10 years ago. So he gave me the $50, he got the gift card, he gave this to you. Yeah, you lost it in your underwear drawer. I've been holding this money for 10 years.

Yeah.

So if you really look at it, the value of that gift card today is much less. I got the card 10 years ago for $50. You would now have $50 that you're going to use today. Guess what? That $50 isn't going as far as it was 10 years ago. Yet I've been holding your money the whole time, so why would I— why would I not accept that? Like, it's only been a— it's been a win-win the whole time for me. That's why I don't understand people who say, well, no, we're not— we took your money, but now we're not going to take your— we're not going to allow you—

Business idea. Maybe I shouldn't put it on here. Maybe we should just hit stop record. Uh, what about if you could actually get interest on your gift card?

Well, I mean, essentially, in other words, that's like the gift card's mine.

I get the interest, not you.

Yeah, that'd be a lot of hard tracking to do.

There it is. Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm saying like, that's a business. Just think about, Larry, there's something we can work on later on.

But right, right, right.

Well, and that's, and that's not you, right? But the consumer, they, they, that's their money. They get money on that interest, right?

Well, and that's why, you know, we tell our, our places, you know, our, our clients that we work with, you know, look at the whole picture. So how many gift cards did you sell? What did you redeem? What's your liability, basically? So what percentage of your cards are being redeemed? So like, I did a report for someone yesterday and they were on a 74% redemption. So 26% of the gift cards that they sold weren't being redeemed. So then I tell them, okay, well then you should be doing whatever you can to sell as many gift cards as long as you're paying less than 26%.

That's better than the stock market, by the way. 26% return on— 26% return on your investment on the gift card.

Right, exactly. So that— so I said, well, you're not selling your gift cards online, sell them online, you know, go to Costco, sell them wherever you can.

So I have a question in terms of the tipping point, uh, as I'll call it. When you think about like a— and again, I work a lot with beverage, but the question kind of applies to anybody. So when you think about a smaller brand, like, is there kind of a rule of thumb? I'm sure it varies Pretty, pretty substantially. But is there sort of a rule of thumb of like, hey, um, you know, once you have a certain number of products, now would be the time to start offering gift cards? Once you're at a certain dollar value of revenue as a company, now is a good time to start offering? Like, at what point should a young brand start really considering gift cards to be a part of their product portfolio?

So to be honest, I think, um, if you're opening like a brick and mortar, um, I think gift cards should be available for your grand opening, for your pre-opening, um, because you're getting people in. I believe that's when you're supposed to load some cards up with $10, $5, and hand them out for free at your pre-opening, grand opening, because now you—

that's—

everyone's going to come for that. But now we want them to come back. So at that point we're saying, okay, we want to use the gift cards right now as a, as a marketing promotions tool, um, to get people to come back. Um, I've also had places where as soon as they get their website up So they get the website up, they're not opening for another 3 months, but they have the website up. I say put your e-cards and your gift cards up right now. Let's start getting some pre-sales. Let's get— let's start getting cash flow before people— and how about this, offer an online special. Hey, we're not open yet, buy a $100 gift card and get $110 worth of value. We're going to be open in 2 months. So they're already starting to get some cash flow, they're already starting to get some exposure, some interest.

That's interesting. That's interesting. I'm gonna Yeah, I'm gonna introduce you to—

With functional brands, with NA brands, like, you know, Even, the whole bit, like, like, you know, Even should do like this golf course deal where, hey, look, if you go out to your local retailer online, I'm gonna give you a $20 Visa because it could be used at the golf course. Maybe you paid $60 for a round. I'm gonna give you $20 off your next round. Just order this gift card here. That, you know, kind of precedes stuff because they do some direct stuff in Marketplace. Hey, Derek, if you're listening to this today, I just gave you an idea. But my point is, is that this could be beverages all day long in terms of as we pre— like pre-launch, during launch, and post-launch to continue to drive the business.

Well, I think the— and I'm going to make an introduction, Larry, while we're talking to a buddy of mine who's, he's just, just starting to get into, you know, I'll put it this way. He's dipping a toe into the pool that Sam and I have, you know, cannonballed into. Um, but he, uh, um, he does like website builds and his background is not in website development. It's more in, um, in conversion rate optimization, stuff like that online.

Yeah.

Okay. Um, but I bring him up because I've introduced him to a lot of the small brands I've been working with to help them get their first website put up, to get them their products listed, to get their Shopify or their Square stores connected, whatever it is.

Definitely.

Yep. And you mentioned something that I think is really interesting. A lot of, again, a lot of these brands, even on a beverage side that I'm working with, are like, oh well, I want— I'm gonna get pre-sales, right? Well, which is fine, that's a good idea, but they're, they're trying to sell in, you know, 12-packs or 4-packs or 24-packs, and they're trying to get, you know, okay, if that costs $30, you pre-sell for $30, fine. But I think your point, it just sweetens the deal a little bit where you say, hey, like, give me $30 I'll give you $50 worth of money to spend, right? Or some, you know, $35, whatever it is. But to your point, you want everybody to come back and redeem that. You want loyal customers. But for the folks that don't, that's free money, right?

Yep. So yeah.

I just realized something. I just realized something, by the way. Uh, the reason that when I go to Costco and I get 20% more is the conversion is 20%, 30% is going to sit on a card. So they're still making like 10%. On the deal.

Well, and if you also notice, Sam, when you go there, you don't get one card. They break it into 2 because they're getting you to come back into the restaurant twice.

Yeah, we use them both at the same time because usually our bills are like $300 because we invite my son, all right, the 2 granddaughters. It's like, it's Father's Day, why am I paying?

Because you're the father. That's how it works.

That's how it works. Thank God for those gift cards though.

Exactly.

I saved 20%. I got 20% more for my investment. At least I think I did.

No, you did. And you paid with a credit card, so you got some points on that too.

Yeah, so let me— so our brands can't afford you, Larry. There's no way. I mean, you're an expensive service. I'm starting a brand, uh, you know, my— I'm cash-strapped. I got to pay, um, Adam to get operations going and get things moving. Then you got to arrive at me. I help find distribution and customers and And we're not expensive, but there's a cost, cost to that. I can't afford you. True.

Yep. Yeah, we hear that a lot. And then we say, well, our average monthly bill is $19 a month. So if you sell one $25 gift card, I think you can pay for us. Uh, we can get you set up on a free app. So if you have a tablet or a smartphone, you don't need any extra hardware.

Okay.

If you want to start with just e-cards instead of a physical card, well, then there's no upfront cost. If you want to start with the actual physical card, we can print as little as 100 cards at a time, 100% custom. We'll do free design with unlimited revisions, so you don't have to worry about that. So I guess we're probably the most cost-effective marketing, uh, tool you could think of.

Oh, I think you just sold DrinkUp, Adam. You got to go in on me with this. So we, we're going to do something with DrinkUp. And then, uh, Alicia is very active this morning. Thank you, Alicia. I love it. Um, she has a question. Can you— first of all, she made a statement that you could use this towards a lingerie store. So Alicia built a multi-million dollar lingerie company back in the day. I said, like you, Larry, she's an entrepreneur, but she asked a question. Can you create a gift card recently? Uh, can you create a gift card recently, uh, compliments of Even? Uh, did you guys create a— can you help me, Adam, here? I'm not sure what she's asking here.

Yeah, give me one second. I was sending that email to, uh, to Cody. Let's see, where'd she— where'd she write that, on LinkedIn or on the—

On the thing. So she said, did you guys create, uh, uh, for, for this version already. Let's assume a golf club promo with on-premise bartenders or bar cart incentives give to them. I mean, you could pretty much do anything with it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So basically, you could— basically, the, the people running the bar, all they would need is to have their smartphone. They put our free app on it. We have our gift cards, um, and our, and our, uh, e-cards have a QR code on it. So basically, using the rear-facing camera, you scan the QR code That automatically puts the number in. You put the amount, you click submit, and now I've run the transaction remotely from the bar lady on the 18th hole.

All right. All right. We're, we're going to be creating gift cards for some of our NA products, uh, for sure. 100%.

Yeah, we work with— we work with every industry you can imagine.

Yeah.

So we have to—

we have to— we do, uh, we have to figure that out, uh, and make some introductions here how we can do that because we're going into accounts. We're a new brand, right? So we're getting— trying to get people people interested. Yeah, like, well, where can I get it? Well, you can sign up for this service, you can go direct, as an example, right?

Yep.

But sometimes they're reluctant to do that. But if I gave our field— so we have feet-on-the-street people— if I gave our feet-on-the-street people, like Sal in Miami or Brian in Wisconsin, you know, or our Texas team, if I gave them this opportunity to walk in and talk to that bartender or that beverage manager, hey, look, if you buy today, I'm actually going to give you a gift card that you can go for your next round of golf or wherever you want to use it. So we could figure out different, like, almost like a point that you could choose golf, you could choose lingerie, whatever floats your boat, you could do it. Is that something possible to create? It's almost like an incentive because there's no law against it.

Correct. You can use gift card. I mean, the big thing with gift cards is people think of it as, okay, I'm gonna sell it and I bring in revenue. Um, but we say no, you have to think of gift cards outside the box— marketing, promotions, employee rewards. Uh, I mean, we have a whole program where, uh, for influencers, you know, so let's say that I have a brewery and I want this influencer to come in and drink there because everyone sees what this person does. So I can put a card product together where every month $100 automatically goes on the card, stays on the card for the whole month. At the end of the month, use it or lose it, sets back to zero, and then it charges up for the next month. So we have people using that for influencers Investors. Sierra Nevada does it for their 600-employee reward program. It's all on a card program based on how many— how long they've been with the company. They get X amount of dollars every month to use either online or at the 2 breweries. Um, so yeah, I mean, the, the options are limitless with the, the gift cards and what we can do with them.

It's amazing. What's been your, um, uh, biggest failure, uh, with, uh, the gift cards and your biggest success?

Biggest failure is probably, you know, it's, you know, we're, we're still a small business. So even after 26 years, we're still a small business. And, um, I guess my biggest failure may be not growing bigger faster. Um, you know, we've always done it on our own. Um, you know, we've never gone out and got any funding or big partnerships. Um, so it's kind of just been um, sweat and, and hard work and just, you know, doing it, you know, 4 people just killing it, crushing it. And so maybe that's the, the biggest regret is the— in the early years, maybe not trying to form partnerships or get some V, you know, some funding and grow it faster. Um, and I would say the biggest, uh, 26 years in business, uh, and being able to, um, have not only support my family but, you know, everyone in the company, um, and able to survive, uh, COVID, um, and continue to really just help the small, small mom-and-pops, um, and see the loyalty, you know, see that, you know, they want to stay with us if they switch POS systems, or they appreciate our hard work. And, and that's kind of the great thing about working with the, the smaller business owners is They appreciate it and they actually show you that appreciation. So that kind of keeps you going because you actually know that, listen, we're not saving lives here, but we are making a difference for these small businesses.

I mean, it's funny, my wife several years ago made a comment, and I promise there's a question at the end of this, but she made a comment one day. She was unhappy with her job, right? And, uh, she, uh, she was working at an outdoor motorsports And she came home and she, you know, been having some rough days at work. And I've been doing this for, you know, the better part of the last 8 years. And so she goes, she comes home, she has a rough day. And she's like, well, it's just, you know, what you do really matters. And I looked at her and I said, excuse me? And she goes, well, you know, it's, it's just, it's making a difference in people's lives. And I was like, baby, I'm just helping people get drunk faster. Like, you know, no, that's a gross oversimplification, obviously.

Right, right.

But I'm like, we're putting liquid in cans. Like, I'm not, you know, saving lives here. Same comment you made, right?

Right.

And, uh, and I said, and also, like, you have to consider, like, that outdoor motorsports park you work at. Well, yes, you may be having rough times. Like, for some people, that's their, like, Disney World, right?

Right.

Their local, you know, oh my God, this is so cool, I get to go spend time with my family, right? So to your point, like, no, none of us are saving lives, but I mean, if you're getting a a mom and pop shop 20% back on their money, that's a big fucking deal.

Right.

Right. Yeah.

Um, so the, the question that comes at the end of that is, is, uh, A, I want to ask Bern's question. I'm not sure if it got mentioned of honoring, and how do you discuss this with your, your brands, honoring the gift card value of competitors as a way to, you know, engage better with the—

Oh, this happened. This is, that had happened to us. We went into a restaurant, they go, that's not us. What they should have done is, you know what, we're going to honor that.

So it is an interest. So I've had— I had, uh, probably 20 years ago, I had a client of ours where they went out of business. It was a restaurant. And this owner went out and he found one of his buddies who had a restaurant, and he said, will you honor these cards? He took care of his customers, and then he put it on his, you know, his website, his Facebook. Our cards will be honored at this restaurant. So That was like the most incredible thing. That's the right thing to do. Do people do that? No, they, they close their rest— they close their door and they take their money and they run away. We've seen places where they've, they've purchased the restaurant, they've kept the name the same, and then they said we're not going to honor the old gift cards.

Oh, shit.

And I mean, and we're like, how can you do that? Like, I understand if you want to change the name, that's fine, because then you can say— but you kept the name the same and now you're not going to honor just because Yeah, so it's, it's amazing what some people do. Um, yeah, I mean, obviously if you just said we're going to honor it— now if it's a $50 gift card and it's not their restaurant and they— I'm gonna honor it, well then I just gave $50 away for, for free. So it's tough to do that. But they could say, oh, that's not us, but, um, we'll honor a percentage of it just to get that you know, hey, we'll honor 20% of it, you know, something, not to send them away. Um, but I think it's more that if you're going out of business, if you were to somehow partner up with another restaurant, that's like the best way to do it because that shows you took care of your customers who, you know, went to your business for the last 10, 15 years instead of just being like, screw you, you're out. Um, but that unfortunately most business owners aren't working that way.

Right.

And I mean, as that example, I mean, that business owner who kept the name and still didn't want to honor it is is crazy. Um, but gift cards are huge. Like, that's a big thing with you're selling your, your restaurant or your business. People forget about the gift cards, and then all of a sudden we'll get a phone call and the new owner will be like, what, there's $50,000 outstanding? And we're like, well, yeah, you should have discussed that when you bought the— you bought the restaurant, you know what I mean? I mean, I had one guy, he just bought a restaurant. They put— he has $200,000 outstanding, so he put $200,000 in an escrow account over the next 2 years, he's gonna— we're gonna, you know, we're gonna monitor the old cards redeemed. And as the old cards get redeemed, he's gonna pay out of the escrow account for the next 2 years. So that's 2 educated business owners thinking about it and doing what's right, you know. So one business owner understands that the 100% of the gift cards aren't going to get redeemed. So yeah, you shouldn't give me all the money. But the other guy said, well, I shouldn't have to eat it. So okay, well, let's come to an agreement and We'll work with Swipe It. We can help with the tracking, but it's a big thing that people really need to— like, when you're selling or buying, the question has to be like, oh, by the way, what's the gift card liability and where is that money?

Right. Wow. Interesting. Let me transition. I have a question, um, uh, a different topic. I kind of— we're still on, um, gift cards, by the way. Sure. But, uh, what's been your, uh, uh, I guess, favorite or most successful promotion You know, what was the promotion? Um, how did they— and then what was behind it and how did you pull it off?

So I would say, I don't know if I would call it a promotion, but our biggest, uh, COVID hit and we had thousands of clients dead in the water. Um, and so we were just working 24/7 building as many e-commerce sites as we could, getting them out to them so that the little guys could start selling e-cards and start bringing in some revenue. while they were closed. So I think that was the biggest success for us because like we literally were helping people stay in business during that crazy COVID time and no one knew what was happening. And so we just kind of rolled our sleeves up and said, whatever, let's get as many done as possible. And yeah, that was probably the biggest thing that we could do for our clients.

Kind of playing part of another company called Drinksify. So it's part of blockchain and these Like NFTs, right?

Yep.

The idea is we're going out and we're talking to producers and we're saying, hey, you know, you're filling that barrel for $500 today, right?

Yeah.

But that barrel in 5 years is going to be worth $5,000. So we're selling the value of what's going to be in the glass and the bottle and the label at tomorrow's prices today. So that producer's only outlaid $500.

Ah, right.

It's interesting. I wonder how gift How gift cards come into this. We have to have a conversation.

Yeah.

Interesting.

My point is, is like, you— these people didn't have money, but you're like, hey, look, when I'm open, you're going to be able to use this gift card or you're going to do curbside with me. Right?

Right.

Gift card, the whole bit. So, I mean, it's not— it's not futures, but it is a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, basically, right. I mean, it was— it was amazing because the restaurants or the businesses were in dire need and the communities really rallied, like you said. I'm gonna buy this gift card. I don't know if this place is gonna survive COVID, so I might be giving them $50 that in 2 months, a year, whatever, when it opens up again, this restaurant might not be there, but I'm gonna take the risk. And the community really rallied around their small mom-and-pops, and, and hopefully most of them survived. But obviously we know a lot of them didn't. But it was, uh, it was at least it was good to see that the communities really did rally around the mom-and-pops.

Yeah, it's, it's unfortunate. Um, Adam, you're thinking there. You had a deep thought again.

I've actually got a question for you, Sam, and, you know, I'd be curious to see—

well, I'm just curious to see how—

I'm not the, I'm not the, uh, gift card guru, but okay.

I know. Give me a chance to take some water.

Exactly right. Uh, give Larry a breather. No, it's— I like if you eat— okay, so I think about your, the Feet on the Street programs that you run.

Yeah.

So you're doing feet on the street, and I don't even mean— I don't even mean gift cards to bars and restaurants. I mean gift cards to like Joe Customer, right? So like, like when we talked to, um, Andrea Poe with Tastemakers, right?

Yeah.

And she said they would give gift cards.

Yeah, they do the value for them to stop to do the questionnaire. Yep.

Right. But I think if I remember right, Andrea said they'll give gift cards to like other— like it's not gift cards to the brands because usually the brands are super small, they don't have them yet, right?

Yeah.

But is it— I mean, does it track? Does it make sense to say like, you know, if I've got one of my energy drink clients who's like, hey, we're gonna go do a sampling at Bill's Grocers in my, you know, locally in my town, and, you know, hey, if you come, you know, do a tasting, give me feedback, you know, have a conversation with me, here's a $5 gift card to Bill's. And you know what I mean? Like you spend $500 on those gift cards. Now Bill's loves you because you're giving, you know, you just spent $500 with them. People are going to come in and spend more than $500.

Say that again. So I understood what you would— the mechanics of what you just said.

Yeah. So like if I'm okay, so I have an energy drink company, right?

Yeah.

And I go to, you know, use a Minnesota example. I go down to Lunds and Byerlys, right? And I say, hey, you know, I'm a new energy drink company. I want to do a sampling in your store, right?

Okay.

And I talk to the manager of the Lunds& Byerlys or the Hy-Vee or wherever it is, and I say, I as the brand owner want to give you as the store $500, and I want 100 $5 gift cards, right? And then I've got my table set up, I've got my, my logo and my, you know, drinks and all the things. And as people are coming up and they're tasting it and they go, hey, this is really good, you know, where can I get it? I go, oh, it's over at the over there, by the way, thanks for coming up and talking to me. Here's a $5 Hy-Vee gift card, right?

100%. Let's do it.

And I would say one other thing is, and if you go and buy one right now, I'll give you a $10 gift card.

Even better, right?

So I want to— I'm incentivizing you to try it. I'm going to incentivize you even more if you actually go and make a purchase.

Sure. I'm glad that my AI is like taking notes here to remind me that this is a huge business opportunity. And Larry's gonna like it because we're— the first person we're gonna call is him to execute this program.

Well, additionally, I would say, oh, and by the way, if you don't mind, can we print a custom card with my logo on it and your logo on it that we hand out?

Right, right.

I had to call out our friend Jay Williams. He's boarding a plane. Jay, thank you so much for stopping by. But he owns a company called Freebird, and Freebird's a water And hopefully, Jay, you listen to what we're talking about because you could probably do this with Freebird out in the marketplace. Because what this is going to do is generate pull. There's push and there's pull. And what we're talking about is pull here because we're getting the consumer to actually execute something. I got this card, I'm gonna go do something. And then, Adam, to your point is I'm at this table right now, I'm talking to you. And Larry, your idea is, hey, look, I got a $5 one. You can do it later or right now. I'm gonna give you $10 if you go buy it right now.

Mm-hmm.

What? That's brilliant. That's cool. And guess what? The store should be like, I just made $500 in my basket because you gave it to me to go execute this tasting. So I won too, because every tasting agency out there, if you're not listening to this right now, when you go do something, you should be taking notes right now. to go how to execute. What you just said, both of you, is brilliant.

But also, the, the supermarket isn't only getting $500 either, because we bought 100 $5 cards. So no one is walking to the supermarket spending $5. So we gave them $500, we got exposure for our brand, and we just generated $2,500 of revenue for the thing because they came back and used those $5 cards.

So— Oh yeah, exactly. And we said it earlier, remember you asked me about Best Buy? What else did you buy?

Exactly.

I just drove a trip into the store. This is probably the most brilliant, um, freaking podcast we've done since the beginning of time, by the way.

There we go.

Yeah, you now are now a co-host or triple host.

Invoice is in the mail.

Yeah, so you have to come back. Uh, uh, the last—

As often as you want me, I'll come back.

Everybody that comes on is brilliant, but one I have to call her out, uh, Courtney O'Brien. She asked— we were talking to her, right? And she's come on a couple of times since then. But she said, can the distributor repeat your message? Right. And what you and Adam said about, hey, this is how you actually build a gift card program and make the retailer part of it, as well as a supplier, as well as someone like me at Bev Assets.

Right.

So everybody wins. Bev Assets wins because I made my supplier happy. My people win because they're selling more product. The store wins.

I mean, the consumer wins too. The consumer just tried a product that they like, got an extra $5, maybe bought it, got extra $10. And now the brands, next time they go buy it, they're going to spend full price for it. So again, like, win-win-win.

It's, uh, I definitely— all right, we've got the thinker going again. I know he's gonna probably pick on me later on, but, uh, no, I mean, I, I, I—

this is the kind of shit I enjoy doing the podcast for, right? Like, whether it's, whether it's that question or, you know, introducing you to my buddy Cody or whoever. Like, I— and Sam knows this, but like, I mean, I got a list of clients on my wall that they're like, you know, and I'm not— it's so funny because I'm like, I'm not the sales guy, right? And they ask me like, how do I, how do I go talk to people, right? Like, they're not, you know, they're not ready for feet on the street even in their own market, you know.

Right.

They're still— they barely have product, let alone anything else. They're like, well, how do I go Talk to a convenience store. How do I go do this? I'm like, you know, we've said it before to people, I'm like, hey, just go make friends, learn about their business, see what their struggles are, what, what their wins are, what their high-margin products are. Like, do they live close to the business they operate? Just learn about them, right?

Right.

But then, I mean, you know, big picture, right? A $500 investment for $5 gift cards, like, A, the local mom-and-pop shop, they're gonna go, shit, sweet, $500, like, hell yeah, right? And then to your point, When 5 times that ends up walking out the register because, you know, people are going to spend more, they're like, okay, well, this new brand was just willing to lay $500 on the line to help me out. Like, I'll carry their products, I'll tell people about them.

I might even put— I might even give them better placement on the shelf. They're such nice people.

Yeah. And we, we average tastings about $150 to $300, um, to execute, right? To do it, you could do like, you could do like $50 worth of $5 gift cards or whatever, just enough to give out, right? So first come, first serve. But it's something of a value, uh, to go, uh, go do it. So I definitely want to follow up on that, right, um, post, uh, uh, podcast later, because we definitely have the, um, ability to do that with our brands and how we go to market. We actually, we require people, I call it go out in the wild, and the wild means they go to bars, restaurants, hotels, stores.

Do the tastings.

do the tastings. They sell a pot, a menu, a display, and a case. Really simple. And we track them on a technology called Piñata. But tracking that with that QR code, I would love to introduce you to actually Lisa Fagan. So Lisa, I haven't forgotten about you if you actually catch this podcast, but she owns a company called Promalytics.

Okay.

And Promalytics, she's actually going to come on later on, so we'll actually tie you two together. But Promalytics is like a QR code that you scan, uh, and the whole bit. So if we can do value there, and then Vidlo, you need to meet China as well. But China, actually, when you do the question and you have like, you, you do that, you know, you post it out there, it always— she always asks when you set up the question, their app is what value you bringing. So I'm assuming that you could actually, uh, do some work with Vidlo. Yeah, as an example. Sorry, but I'm always thinking about who I can connect you with.

No, that's great. That's great. That's why we do these, right?

Um, so we have, we have about 10 minutes or so. We can go longer. Less or whatever, but we always ask every founder this question. And somehow I got to be able to take it out of all these videos we've done because all the answers are just marvelous, by the way. There's no wrong or right answer.

You're putting a lot of pressure on me right now.

Larry, what's the difference between success and failure?

Stopping, quitting.

I love it. That's my answer, not giving up, which is—

Yeah. I mean, you only fail if you stop trying, right? I was quarter of a million dollars in debt. My 2 business partners left. I said, I'm not quitting, I'm going to keep going. This was, I don't know, uh, 20 years ago. Um, I assumed all the debt, I kept going. Um, so yeah, I guess I could have— there was 3 of us, 2 quit, I didn't. So I guess that's the difference right there.

That's amazing. So $200,000 down in the hole and you kept on going. What kept you going?

Well, I figured, uh, I think at that point, um, my parents had invested my bar mitzvah money, so I probably had about $30,000, uh, that to my name. So my thinking was, you know, when you go bankrupt, you go bankrupt. So whether it's $30,000 or $500,000, if you go bankrupt, you go bankrupt. So I said, I, you know, I'm gonna take the gamble. I'll assume all the debt. I, I don't have $250,000, so it's really only what I have. So I'll assume the debt and keep plugging along. And that's what we did. How did you keep people at bay in terms of paying them?

How did you just, like, just make some agreements on the side or whatever?

Just—

Well, you know, at that point a lot of it was, um, because we had the college, the meal plan. So, you know, people were giving us money today to be spent yesterday, so we were kind of Kind of going with the cash flow until eventually we just started, you know, catching up, catching up, catching up to eventually where we were profitable. And so—

That's amazing because there's so many people that get in a pickle and, you know, I would say to anybody out there, get to know them. But that's a great story. I can't tell you how many founders that we've talked to and that we meet that they've either been ripped off or they're in debt. But they keep on going. And, uh, you know, my friend Josh Wan owns Force Brands. He's an entrepreneur like you. And, and I asked him about being an entrepreneur because I'm new to this world, just like Adam. We've jumped in like cannonball first. We're trying to figure it out.

Right, right, right.

I'm blessed to have a partner who's been doing it for 20 years, but I'm new to the game. And, and just to— what he said is you got to be willing to play in the mud.

Yeah. Well, and you also have to have a support staff. Um, so I was quarter million dollars in debt, which means, uh, I was, I was at the point of being homeless. Um, but I had family, so I moved home with mom and dad at, you know, 26 years old. Um, but I had to do what I had to do. Um, and so, but because I had that, so at the back of my head, I always know, okay, I got mom and dad are always going to be there for me. Um, so that allowed me to take the risk and keep going and knowing that I had someone behind me that was you know, cheering for me and help and rooting me on and, you know, keeping me going on in the right direction. Um, so that's, that's kind of a big thing too.

That's so amazing. I mean, I did a post yesterday about like joy, and, and then I found this random video. You should go watch it. But this, uh, this gentleman's on the stage and he talks about, have you ever been in a situation where you're going to the cash register and you have like a couple items in your hand And you pull out your card and you're just praying that, that there's enough money on that card to actually buy it. And then the card scans and it actually, it goes through. The card goes through, right? And, and then he talks about when he'd go home at night and he would see his kids and, you know, and, and he had no money, nothing in the bank, but he had his kids and it was his greatest joy, right?

Right.

And the whole bit. And it just sends shivers up my spine right now as I talk. Because there's so many people that are struggling out there, Larry, and they have dreams. Yeah, they all stop. You know, they don't, they don't keep going. And I think many people that will catch this, hopefully now or in the future, will actually hear your story of being over $200,000 in debt. And you had a nice support system that supported you to move forward. That's just so— thank you for sharing.

Oh, my pleasure. And, and that's why we love to help. You know, we, we do special rates for nonprofits. We try to help the mom and pops, you know, whatever we can do. Because listen, we know it is tough. You know, they always say if you can make it through 3 years, you're good. You know, so we're year 26, so we're feeling pretty good about ourselves. And so if we can give back, um, that's really the name of the game, and that's what keeps us going.

Alicia's— she's, she's gonna say something if she's still around, because she always says we, we help people find work And do right by brands. That's our 2 whys.

Yep.

And we've put over almost $100,000 into people's pockets over the last 90 days.

Awesome.

Which is— and we don't see any of that. Our mission is to put people to work and pay them is our number one mission. So to hear you say that resonates with me as well. With the final minutes, you know, what kind of closing things? One is How do people find you? Okay. Uh, 2 is what kind of things would you like to leave everybody, uh, with in terms of wisdom and, and, uh, in their journeys? And, uh, and again, I keep on wanting to say coupons. I know it's gift cards.

Gift cards.

Gift cards.

Gift cards. Yes. Uh, so obviously, um, swipeit.com is our website. Um, I am now working remote. As you can see, this is my home office. So that means I have to walk by this Every day, 500 times a day. So if you want to email Larry at Swybit.com, I will probably get that within the next five minutes, and I will see it all weekend long. And really, the big thing with us is education. I think that, and I'm seeing this a lot right now because I've joined a group in Massachusetts. It's called the it's the Massachusetts Restaurant Asian Association, right? And What I'm seeing is that we're trying to help people. And like the Asian Restaurant Association, what I've noticed is, you know, because of a language barrier, there's a big discrepancy in terms of who's selling their gift cards, like say from their website. So my big thing is education, you know. So, um, whether it's, you know, I went to one town and I looked and the American— all the American bars and grills were selling their gift cards online. But I noticed that the Ethiopian restaurant wasn't, the Mexican restaurant, and the Asian Chinese food restaurant wasn't. And the reason is, is because they don't have the education. They don't know that they should be selling the gift cards online. They haven't been educated about it. They also might not be trustworthy of the person walking in because he looks different, and maybe they've been burnt before. So our thing is, is not just educating the small business owners, but, you know, minority owners, foreigners, people who gift cards aren't something that they know about, so that we can try to make this an even playing field for all industries, for all business owners. And so a lot of the big thing is really is education. So contact me and ask questions about gift cards in general, and I'll let you know best practices and how gift cards can help your business. And if you end up working with SwipeBit, great, but just gift cards in general are a good thing for all small businesses.

Interesting. That's, uh, I have some— Adam's, uh, Adam, any closing statements to you, uh, in terms of you want to share with the audience?

I mean, I think this has just been a phenomenal, uh, conversation, and, and thanks, you know, Larry, for being a part of it. But, but it's just been a great example on get creative, right? Yes, there's a lot of affordable ways to, to be profitable or to, you know, provide real estate for marketing or whatever. And, you know, Sam and I, you and I talk to brands about it all the time, but like, you know, biting off more than you can chew is, is the nail in the coffin for early-stage brands. And so finding ways like this to be creative and be frugal and be cost-effective and blah blah, I think it's just another, you know, whatever you want to call it, tool in the belt of ways to get stuff done.

So, yep.

Yeah, it's— people ask me all the time is, why would you have Larry the Gift Card Guru on Drink Up? What does that have to do with drinks? It has everything to do with Yeah. Everything to do with it, because it's about, it's about putting those initiatives and programs and finding that consumer. If it involves a consumer in a purchase, come on, drink up.

Exactly.

And Adam, I love what you said is, you know, you don't have to spend $100,000 to create some type of marketing campaign. I mean, I heard $19, by the way. It's the point of entry with Larry to get started, but obviously there's— you multiply by how many cards you do or whatever. But the point is they've made it so easy to give a path. And with the internet and technology, I mean, you literally— you know, I always talk about Gary Vaynerchuk, but if you talk about Larry— Gary Vaynerchuk, he does like live social selling. He said the first time in the world you don't need a big marketing agency behind you to actually create demand for your product. So I love what you said, Adam. And Larry, thank you so much for being here. Thanks everyone for joining Drink Up today. Larry and Adam ask you to stay on because we always have to make sure our video uploads.

Sure.

And we'll see everybody next week.

I appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.