What Do You Do When You Reach The Top Of The Mountain?

Hey, it's Mark Podolski the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and I'm really excited for today's super uber wealthy geeky guest for a number of reasons. However, before we talk to our guest, I'd be remiss if I didn't properly introduce my co host, the brain, the professor, the flight school Sherpa. You know him, you love him. Scott Todd from Scott todd.net landmodo.com and most importantly, if not automating your craigslist and your Facebook postings. Postingdomination.com thelandgeek Scott Todd. How are you, Mark? I'm great. How are you? I'm great, I'm great. I'm really excited to talk to our guest, Glenn Geller from Symposium us. I just wanna remind the listeners, today's podcast is sponsored by Flight School. Learn more about how you can execute in real time on Flight School with a guy who's done over 800 deals. He's the best in the world. Scott Todd is going to lead you up that land investing mountain. Learn more@thelandgeek.com Training Glenn Geller, you are. I'm gonna put on my anchorman voice. You're a big deal.

Oh, well, thanks.

So if you don't know about Glenn, he is just one of these innovators and Glenn, I think you're going to do a way better job of telling your bio than me. So take it away.

Okay, I'll do my best, Mark. Thanks for having me. And Scott as well. So yeah, I mean I've been a technologist as long as I can remember really. I got started building real time systems very, very early on. I went to UC Irvine and UNLV here in Las Vegas. I was actually born and raised in Las Vegas and you know, I was kind of turned on to what became this high tech world of today. And I did so kind of from the, from the lighting and sound world. And so that was my first world that I got into and first thing I ever did was created a show control program actually for the theater. I was in the theater first and so that was my first kind of taste of building something that somebody found value in and ultimately wanted to buy it. And so I spent some time in the tech theater business. But then in late 90s, kind of through theater, music and those things, I came up with what I thought was going to be an awesome idea and started working with a little bank out of California and we invented what's ultimately known today as the prepaid debit card. And so I spent almost, you know, almost 15 years total, but about 10 plus years really building businesses, several in succession as a matter of fact, and selling out a couple of times, taking a little break and retiring during that. And what I, what I found is this real deep love of the financial tech and how it really helps small to mid sized businesses, individuals and those who are less banked than normal. What we called the unbanked or underbanked world. So fast forward to what we're doing today in regards to that is that we've essentially created real time technology that allows any person on the planet to host their own meeting, either one to one or one to many. We can have up to 5,000 today and are increasing probably to 10,000 in a month or something like that. And also even do video recorded shoutouts for a fee. So we've built this system called Symposium which is available at Symposium Us or you can find us on our socials at Symposium Corp and you can sign up for free. You basically download the app on your phone or you can go to us at Symposium Us and click on the link for the web and you can create yourself your own digital storefront which then offers whatever you want to offer. So let's say you have some expertise in a certain field or some real knowledge about, let's say, how to play the guitar or in your vein, you know, you have real estate knowledge that people are clamoring to find. Now of course you're bombarded with people sending you emails and trying to look you up online and watch your videos. But for some people it takes a lot more for them to really learn and to learn at a big way. And so that one to one, that face to face connectivity is some things I think that a lot of people in your position today are lacking. Now of course there are tools like Zoom and other things like out there that you can host a small meeting, but they're non monetized. And even if you went out there and you got a lot a live stream and got yourself a PayPal account and used Google Calendar for all the scheduling, what Symposium does is brings that all into one place. I can set up a schedule. I can say I want to work Mondays, not Tuesdays, work Wednesdays, I want to take some time off on this week or this month. Our system does all that scheduling for you and then helps you to attract the people who are looking to learn from you or to be educated or otherwise some sort of valuable transfer. Could even be entertainment purposes or Meet and greets and things like that. And so we're out there kind of telling the world about what is symposium today.

So Glenn, is this like, let's say Eventbrite and Zoom had a love child?

Sure.

Would it be fair to say that Symposium would be that love child?

It could be, yes. You'd need more components though. You take an Eventbrite take, take Zoom, throw on Google Calendar and you know, of course Eventbrite is your, is your, you know, your payment solution. But now let's say you have a third party payment solution like a strip or another ones like that. So it takes multiple components in one system to really equal what we have in terms of the tool set that is Symposium itself.

I see, I see. Scott Todd, you're a technologist. What's your clarity like?

Why not just use Clarity? Why not?

Well, that's a good question. Clarity has some really good things going for it. We're built on a little different technology. We're fully built on a WebRTC stack with the also scale to millions. And so I don't know that clarity's there yet. Maybe they'll get there. We have some other people who are looking at competing with us in the shoutouts business. For example, we have three real product sets, live one on ones, live one to manys with the ability to do guests in a real time live environment. And our third product, which is the sim gram, so it's the shout out, you know, we found is that people, sure, they can manage multiple platforms, do one over here and one over there, but when people are trying to brand themselves, we want to give them the opportunity, kind of doing everything in one platform. Ours is very simple where you put in your payment information one time and then of course you can use that with any one of the hosts that offer things. And one thing that's really, really important is that we're opening up a merchant account on your behalf. We're not a company that's holding on to your money. We are a financial service that has hooked you up with your own merchant account that you can receive direct funds, and we manage that your behalf through our system.

Very interesting, very interesting. So let's just talk about some entrepreneurial lessons, Glenn.

Okay.

And starting symposium, starting your other companies, if you know, let's say like you got a small, I don't know, land investing business.

Right, Right, Sure. Yep.

You're starting to break into the market and you're doing, you know, something with it.

Right.

As a successful founder, what do you think would be the three Most important components of getting traction and getting into the marketplace.

Wow. Well, that's a. That's a tough question, but I can. I mean, the first thing is just don't give up, right? Everybody's gonna be a naysayer. Everybody's going to tell you how, hey, this is this other thing, and you shouldn't do that. So, you know, don't give up. But also, second thing is, you also have to kind of know when to give up, you know, and sometimes the idea doesn't, you know, doesn't actually pan out, or so some need to pivot. And so you got to find out the right thing. And my last, my final thing is really, you know, we're so good at building on a budget these days, but trust me on this one, always ask for twice as much money as you think you're going to need. All right, those are my. Those are my three most important kind of guides from that question.

Okay, great, great. Do you have a favorite sort of failure in symposium that you learned from and then you were able to pivot?

Oh, gosh, not yet. I mean, we've had lots of little failures over, you know, the couple of years. We've been building for a couple of years. And that's the thing that's interesting is that when you really see a product like this, there's really kind of two mindsets, right? You can kind of go shoot for minimum viable product and hope and pray that the thing stays up while you're getting some traction. Or you can go a little different route, which is invest in infrastructure. Invest in something that, you know, will scale and then kind of start a smaller test and ramp up from there. So we picked the ladder. We really decided to engineer a real, true system. And so that might have been the first failure is that here we are, we've engineered a system that has so many pieces and it's so flexible that it really kind of takes a little bit of time to educate people on all the things that can happen. So that's kind of an interesting thing. We've had to come back and solve that with tutorials and little snippets and videos and things like that. Of course, when we look at it for a couple of years, it's like, you know, we know how it works perfectly, but then somebody looks at it that's sight unseen, and they go, all right, don't quite get it. So we're trying to solve that still actively, with tutorials and things like that. We've built a very powerful platform that has a lot of features and a lot of, you know, unknown features that are very helpful to a lot of certain types, but maybe not for the masses that just want to do one, you know, one meeting or something like that. So we're still working through that, Scott.

Todd, what are your thoughts?

Well, I just have a question, like, I'm intrigued by the whole concept of like creating the prepaid debit card back where this thing started at. Like, how do you, how did you come up with that? Like, what's the genesis behind that? What was the thought process? And then how does that take you and bring you back to like where you are today? Like, what lessons did you learn from that that allow you to kind of.

Take.

The current product that you're working on, the current company that you're working on? Like, how do you go from financial services over to like this?

It's such a great, a great question, Scott. Well, first of all, this is really financial services, right? We positioned ourselves as a real tool set and a real helper for the, you know, for these individuals. So, but to answer your question directly, you know, this came all about this underbanked, unbanked world. And so I had started kind of in that world in the prepaid space, specifically prepaid cell phones when it was just getting started, and prepaid calling cards. And so I was able to identify a market that had a real need. You know, they were buying prepaid calling cards because that was some way to part with a small amount of cash and not have to really deposit it somewhere and things like they just buy it, they use it as they need it, and they kind of throw it away as it goes. And in similar fashion, the prepaid mobile gave those people who really didn't have good credit scores and couldn't maybe qualify for traditional monthly based service. And it gave them a real way to enter the world of the cell phone by prepaying for their service. So we kind of took those two models, we knew those kinds of people and we said if we could come up with a product that allowed somebody to instantly fund either in cash, going to a bank, going to a load station like a Western Union, MoneyGram, et cetera, and then send money to their compatriots, whether that's across the street or across the world. Obviously money transfer was a huge business at that time. It still is, you know, people transferring money in a foreign environment. And then the third piece is that people really didn't have debit cards. Cash payers didn't have a way. And as debit cards were becoming More ubiquitous and daily spends. We really thought that we would solve all of those pieces. And here we are again, 15 plus years later. Knowing that we did that, we created an environment where people who were unbanked or underbanked felt now empowered and proud to have a financial instrument in their pocket. Even if they had to put the money up just like you would in a bank account, they now could present that card for debit based purchases at a store, at the, you know, the grocery to buy their furniture, et cetera. And as it matriculated through having, you know, the kind of the larger brands, the MasterCard, the Visa card, Discover brands and things like that, it further added value to their payment capabilities. So we saw it go, you know, again we started with an ATM card, prepaid ATM card, but it was always a very real time product that allows you to do really three things. Load it, send funds to other cardholders and other affiliated accounts. And then the third part again was spend money at a physical brick and mortar or online three months that you've money that you've pre deposited without having the ability to walk into a physical bank. You either don't have paperwork, you've ran.

Up your bank account overdrafted and the bank won't work with you, you're on check systems, et cetera, et cetera. So that was the market that we really set out to solve. We did solve it over about a 10 year period. And then when I exited the space, kind of licensed all my software and all that to all the major providers of those services and really exited in a big way. But still it exists today. We kind of took all those pieces and put them back together for this play with much greater, better technology, faster capabilities, much more scalable infrastructure, but certainly with that same bent in mind, the ability to help a small business owner, the individual who doesn't have access to the same tool sets that the Fortune 500s have in terms of payments and connectivity.

Very, very interesting. I mean, Glenn, when you achieve the level of success that you achieved and you're on top of the mountain. Right?

Sure.

And you don't need to do anything else.

Right, Right.

Where do you find the purpose or the why or the wherewithal to say, you know what, it's great up at the top of the mountain, going to scale all the way back down and climb all the way back up again.

Sure.

And go through, you know, those trials and tribulations again?

Well, to, I mean, a couple of things. Right. So another great question. First of all, it's very lonely at the top of the mountain. If there really is a top of the mountain, it's very lonely there. You know, I did. I've retired a couple of times and traveled the world. That's what I can say, you know, if I could, you know, lend a suggestion to anyone. You know, travel is so not overrated in this world. You know, anybody who has the opportunity to travel, see what other people in other countries, other ways of life, it's so important to how to mold and shape your life going forward. Right. And it just so happens that we don't really get a huge chance to do that when we're younger. Right. And so sometimes that happens a little older, you know, in the older years. I just got lucky. You know, I got lucky and I. And I hit okay and was able to do something, but it's lonely at the top. The other thing is there's really never a time, I don't think. I mean, I did at some point believe that I could retire and go travel the world. I'm just going to be fine and could maybe not ever do anything again. But this brain just keeps going, you know, and so you see things. I've kind of, to a certain extent, you know, made myself think about how to solve problems that the world is having, you know, whether they're my own individual problems or problems that I see in a grander scale and try to put some. Some thought behind that. And so, you know, when you come up with ideas and you think you can solve those things, it's, you know, I have a business mind, too, and so it's easy to kind of put that into a construct that could become a business. And so this is not the first one that I've done in the. In the moment. Just happens to be the one we're talking about right now. But it's almost become second nature to me. I like the, you know, lots of times they say it's not the, you know, it's the journey, not the destination. And I truly live that every day. You know, the journey is what it is for me. Building something that people really, truly can use and it impacts their lives is very rewarding to me personally.

That's great. That's great. This is gonna be like an oddball question, but I have to ask it.

Sure.

You know, I like to ask this. People that are really well traveled can't live. The United States, Right.

Okay.

Can never go back to the United States.

Right.

What country would you move to that you'd be very happy? Like, okay, I'm gonna stay Here, I'd be happy if I never have to travel to another country again.

I'm gonna blow you away on this one. But maybe this is something actually won't come as so much of a surprise. I do a fair amount of, you know, evaluation of countries. I mean, we have. We're a foreign group, you know, foreign group as well as being a US Based group. So we have lots of people all around the world. So I'd have to say, without even really thinking about it, Vietnam. Vietnam is the place where I would be. And I'll tell you why. Because Vietnam will probably be the next America. You know, I really, truly believe that the people feel that way. I'm telling you, it's weird to hear me say that, but there's so much oppression over there happening because the government knows that it's kind of on its way out. But I'll tell you, of all of the. Especially all the Asian countries, and that's where I'm kind of focused right now. I was in south and Central America last decade, so Asia, I think is where it's at. Vietnam is where I would be. I would live in Vietnam if it wasn't for the pollution. I would be there now. Honestly, I'd spend a great deal of my time there. But they do have a pollution problem. China has a serious pollution problem too. And this is something that we're thinking about in another element of my businesses too. So Vietnam is it. That's where I'd be for sure.

Wow. I'm going to give you $50 billion to live in this country and you're going to say no? Which country would it be?

Oh, man. Oh, goodness. Okay, I think the answer is easy. So it's. I think it's Nicaragua or maybe Argentina somewhere around in those areas they're so susceptible to corruption, you could probably wind up dead just tomorrow. And the more money you have, the bigger the, you know, the target that's on your back. And these people, you know, they got guerrilla warfare down there. So I want to be nowhere, nowhere close. I value my life and I don't like people shooting at me, so I'm okay with that.

Right, Scott? Todd? I mean, the listeners had no idea when they started listening to this podcast that it would go this, this way. This is what I love about this podcast, is you learn something new every day. We meet these crazy, like, super successful individuals and we get to glean a little bit from it. Like now I never need to go to Nicaragua. Nicaragua, Argentina, you want to go to Vietnam?

In Vietnam? Wait can you edit that out?

Right? Can you edit it?

Wait, I missed it.

Oh, I said we should start investing in Vietnam, but I need you to edit that out now.

That's right, yeah. Actually, I'll tell you what, you know, they actually do have a very good foreign investment program in Vietnam. We're currently work inside those constructs in a couple of programming centers there in Vietnam. So, you know, we're all about it. We're all about having, helping foreign workers. You know, we do a lot of it here in the US but we're a global company. You can't grow in a global marketplace without really having your finger on the pulse in these countries. And so, you know, we're proud of our, of our global footprint, no doubt.

What would you say is the best entrepreneurial lesson your mother or father ever taught you?

Oh my gosh, that's not a tough one. I'll tell you. I'll tell you a real quick story. My father was the first one to really get me into business. You know, my dad, from a very young age, he hired me to run a, basically a newspaper subscription. You know, little team. I was, myself, my little brother and this other kid and we were building a little team selling newspapers for the Las Vegas sun here in the Las Vegas market. And so this was essentially a kid, seven, eight years old, knocking on doors, you know, trying come up with a pitch, hey, would you buy the newspaper? It's only $2.50 a, you know, month or whatever it is. And I just cleaned up, right, I cleaned up. I'm a cute kid. Nobody's going to knocking on doors in this, you know, town. And I did it. I must have sold thousands and thousands of subscriptions over the course of months. And so I worked myselves up. I was the top salesperson on the team again, I think it was 7, 8, 9, 10 years old. I don't know what I really was at that point, but I was young, under 10. And so the groups got together, all these people got together and they financed a trip to Knott's Berry Farm from Las Vegas. They took all of us sellers out there and I was suddenly now in the back of the van with a bunch of like 14, 16, 17 year old kids being like a 10 year old guy. And they weren't nice to me. I'm this kid, I've got better numbers, my dad's running the crew. You know, they weren't nice to me. And so what I learned very early on is this, is that you can't allow anybody to Judge you for your talents. Just. You can't allow them to do that because it's really not judgment. It's envy, Right? And it's jealousy. And so that's what I learned as a real little kid, to just stay head down, focus. I knew a path that I could, you know, that I could follow, and that led me through sales, you know, originally, and then early building businesses, you know, in the early night or late 90s and early 2000s. And so, you know, just don't let anybody. Don't. Don't let yourself get ruffled by those judgments out there. Let the haters hate, and just keep your head down and do what you do.

I love it. Scott Todd, what are you thinking? What do you think?

Haters hate, man. My new slogan, Let the haters hate, baby.

Let the haters hate. All right, well, I've got one more question for you, Glenn, or we go to our tip of the week. And Scott Todd goes to me and says, mark, I've got a great idea for an app. It's X, Y and Z. It is going to change the world. It is gonna be amazing. We're gonna get a billion downloads. We're gonna make Snap look like a small little company would probably buy Snap. It's this brilliant, right? What would be your first piece of advice before we launch?

Oh, man, my first piece of advice. That's a tough one. But here's what I'm going to say. Get somebody who knows how to write really well, likes writing, likes documenting things, and likes to put paper behind it. Because I can tell you one thing, is that any undertaking you go under, if you don't have a really good plan, and that plan is reduced to very good writing that people can understand, you will most likely fail. So plan well or plan to fail.

I love it. I think I've heard that.

I didn't invent it. I'm just looking at it right there on the wall. No, I'm just joking.

All right, well, I think your mentorship, this. This podcast has been. Has been great, and we've learned a lot. Symposium Us is a. Is a really exciting app that I think is really, really interesting for a lot of different markets out there. But it's now time for us to give you. Just grill you one more time, Glenn.

Yeah, sure.

Tip of the week. Website. A resource, a book, something actionable where the art of passive income listeners can go right now, improve their businesses, improve their lives. What have you got?

I got a quick one. It's a little hack, right? So here's what I'm all into today. You should ride. If anybody Ubers, you should Uber with the pool option. It saves you five bucks. And you never know who you're going to meet when you're ubering with those people. Just in the last two weeks, I've met people who are here from LA who are at celebrity status, just riding around in Las Vegas. So we're all doing it. That's kind of my tip of maybe even the month. I'm going to Uber pool for the rest of the month and see how many people I can meet when I'm going to business meetings and see if I can report back on you. Maybe I'll find some interesting people that we've ridden with here on the Uber pool. That's. That's my tip. Uber pool. It's fun.

That's a. That's a really cool tip. My first reaction to it was, I'm just anxious, like, stranger danger. But you're telling me it's safe. Like, I want to have my. My daughter Uber pool.

Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't probably do that, you know, But I'm talking about you. If you, like, I mean, you meet people and, you know, occasionally go out, you. You shake hands. So, you know, sometimes listen, if you deal with any sort of anxiety, it's a great way to kind of deal with that. You're going to get into a conversation, you know, and of things. I've been doing public speaking for 20 years, so I'm very comfortable with it. But I always like meeting new people. I like hearing a little bit about their story, and it gives me something to maybe talk about or reflect on as the days go by. So it's cool meeting people. I think people are really what. What makes us, you know, what really not only makes the. This country, but this world unique. Right. Everybody has a little different way of thinking about things, and so it's really cool to meet them and have them reflect on that and be able to think about that later.

That's really cool. So, Glenn, last question.

Sure.

I'm in an Uber pool with you.

Yes.

What's going to be your opener?

Oh, with you, Mark. Oh, my gosh. You know what? I'd have to say that you look like a guy, you know, you look like a guy who's involved in the tech scene. That would be. I would come right at it for tech. You have this tech look, man. So I would be like, you're a tech guy, you're a guy, you're a superstar. You have a TV show or something, I'm sure. And that probably gets you to talk to me for a second.

I love it. I'm gonna start using it. See, now, you guys, you know, this isn't video, but Glenn's got this, like, rock star look to him with the long hair that in a million years, I could never grow. And Scott Todd, by the way. But, you know, and so, you know, you know.

You know, when guys wasn't always this way, it was. It took a long time for me to be comfortable starting to grow my hair. And then, yeah, last 10 years, I mean, this is what I've become known for. People will stop me on a train or, you know, in an airport. I recognize you with the hair. So now I can't even cut it. It's hot, you know, it's hot and long and crazy. So. But I'll keep growing it until I probably can't anymore. This I owe squarely to my mother, may she rest in peace. She gave me this luscious, beautiful head of hair. And so I carry it in her memory.

I love it. I love it. Scott Todd, what's your tip of the week?

I mean, how do I compete against all that hair? I don't know what to say, Scott.

You got your thing going on too, man.

Yeah, I'm not sure who gave it to me, though, or who took it from me.

So.

I hear you.

I'll blame it. I'll blame it on the teenagers. I don't know. Hey, Mark, so let's just say I get in my car and I drive over to Land Geek headquarters, right? I get there and.

Or. Or you're. You're.

Yeah, I get there and I'm like, hey, man, I need the WI fi. Like, I'm sure you have a guest WI FI setup, right?

Yeah, it's. I love Scott Todd.

Okay.

Okay, that's cool. Now, look, instead of.

By the way, my daughter's friends think is so weird when I say that.

Yeah, they probably would. But instead of having to, like, tell them over and over and over again what the guest password is and how to connect to it, whatever, check out my friend porter. It's at Ten One Design. That's spelled out Ten One Design.com. porter.

And.

And when you check this thing out, man, look at this. Because you get this little placard, okay? And you. It's like $40. And you put this thing wherever you want in your house, your office, whatever, conference rooms. And what it does is you basically program into it your WI FI information. So someone walks up with their phone, they can use near field communication. They hover the phone over it. It basically connects them to the network that you want them to be on. Password, everything, so you're not having to give it out and tell them like, I love Scott Todd. And they have to explain who Scott Todd is, all of this stuff. And if they're old school and they have an older phone that doesn't have near field communication, no problem. You just flip over the back of this little card. There's a QR code on there that connects them directly to the WI fi. How cool is that?

That is really cool. I could see like a coffee shop doing this.

A coffee shop.

Firstly, like, I want the kids off the devices. Like, the last thing I want them is, hey, guys, want to get on WI fi? Like go outside, it's nice out.

Well, remember, remember, there is a use for this too for your kids, man. Like you can get into the habit of changing your WI FI password every day. And then when they've done what you want to, then, then you take out this little plaque and you're like, here you go, you can connect to it.

Now that is the perfect deal for this device. I was thinking if I saw this device too, Scott, I think it's brilliant. And I think that's the thing. Coffee shops, they don't have to have passwords that stick around for 30 days. People won't be sitting in the, you know, in the parking lot leaching off of the free WI fi. They can put it on their table. Hey, we change it just coming or right here at the, by the register, just tap your phone and that'll unlock your WI fi. You know, I think that's, that's there. The home use is there. I see where, where you're going with trying to keep the kids off the tech and I totally get behind you. But you know, they're going to get on somebody's WI fi, it's not yours, they're going to get on the neighbors, they're going to get on their buddy's hotspot, they're going to find it. So you may as well as Scott said, you know, give them some way, some sort of rigmarole they have to go through when they change the password now you know that they're on, etc. Or you can graduate to more of a WI FI system that you can program, you know, for your kids and you can program different times. Maybe the ubiquity stuff is good for that kind of stuff. So there's, there's lots of ways, but I love that product, the portal. I'm going to go out and get one for myself. There's no doubt.

I love it.

I love it.

Well, my tip of the week is learn more about the Symposium app at Symposium Us. It's on the App Store. It's on Google Play for those three people that actually have androids that are listening to this podcast. And there's a web app, so I highly recommend it. Check it out. You'll get some use out of it. And it's beautiful, by the way. And Glenn Geller, we wish you nothing but continued success and making a difference in the world. Are we good?

Well, thank you so much, Mark. I'm great. Thanks again. Appreciate you. And Scott was great to have a conversation.

Same to you.

Great, Scott. Todd, are we good?

We're good, Mark.

All right. Just want to remind the listeners the only way we're going to get the quality of guests like Glenn Geller from Symposium Us is if you do us three little favors. You gotta subscribe, you gotta rate, you gotta review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of that review to supporthelandgeek.com we're gonna send you for free our $97 passive income launch kit course. And just as a, as a thank you, also, just a reminder, the Dirt Rich book is still on Amazon, so recommend it to a friend. I'd really appreciate it. Let me know you did that, too. And I might even do something even more special. Who knows? Probably another passive income launch kit, but maybe not. You'll never know unless you recommend Dirt Rich. All right, I want to thank everyone again and let freedom ring. Thanks, everybody.