Max Ringelheim: When Going Viral | The Tyler Wagner Show #1038

All right everyone, welcome back to another episode. Today we have Max Ringelheim, so welcome to the show, man.

What's going on everyone? Thanks so much for having me, excited to be here.

Of course, man, thank you for, uh, coming on. It's pretty cool, we're actually— for everybody listening or viewing We're not too far apart physically, actually, but we're doing this over Zoom. So if you can just start us off, tell us a little bit more about you and what you do.

Yeah, absolutely. So thanks so much for having me. My name is Max Schringelheim, originally from Long Island, New York. Went to school at University at Buffalo, caught the entrepreneurial bug while in college. And ever since, you know, basically over the last 10 years since graduating college, been involved in a bunch of different, really interesting tech startups. One of which you guys are probably familiar with is, you know, remember those hoverboards? Yes, the devices that started blowing up, catching fire. You know, that was part of my doing with a couple of co-founders of mine with a super popular viral brand called Funky Duck. And, you know, other than that, have been in some other really interesting full-time roles at some really awesome companies like WeWork and LittleBits and I've just, you know, developed a present-day sales and marketing consulting business, an emerging media entity called When Going Viral that I'm excited to tell you guys more about today and continue building out further and further as the future goes on.

Awesome. Yeah, I'm pumped to talk about this. So let me know if it is the same, but when you were in college and you said you caught the entrepreneurial bug, Is that the hoverboard company or was that before the hoverboard?

Yeah, great question. So no, the hoverboard was like, you know, a good 5 years after graduating college. So I first caught the entrepreneurial bug as a sophomore in college where I attempted in 2008 to basically build like the Uber before Uber existed. There's a company called University Green Transportation. Was basically a hybrid taxi service for university populations to get around the local area surrounding their said university campus using their university ID card to pay for their trips. And so, yeah, that was like the first basic venture of mine that I tried really launching and entered a business plan competition with that hybrid taxi service twice, made it to the finals once but never won. It was in the third time being the charm entry into this competition. It was called the Panache Business Plan Competition over at University at Buffalo. And the third time was a charm. I won $10,000, but not to launch an eco-friendly taxi service, but rather to launch a video conferencing software company that I had started called Vonvo.com. And Vonvo was a video chatting application where basically ordinary citizens like you and I, Tyler, could come and talk about all the subjects that matter, crucial current events. So whether it was, you know, the war in Syria, Israel-Palestine, you know, gun control, rights, you name it, we were having these awesome conversations related to crucial current events and allowing ordinary citizens to kind of speak their mind about the topics that matter.

And so did that, um, because you've done a lot of companies, so I kind of want to walk through them because this is like, this is serial entrepreneur defined right here for everybody, in my opinion. Um, so that's wild though. So you literally had the like kind of Uber idea before Uber. That's pretty— oh man. Um, but that's why it's about the journey and not necessarily the destination, right? Because that alone, I, I don't know, for a true entrepreneur it wouldn't, but for some people it would maybe feel a little crippling, right? Because it's like, you were definitely onto something that could have been huge.

Yeah. I mean, the joke that my friends make fun in a playful way, just about the whole Uber before Uber, right? It was really ironic timing because it was in 2008 when basically Uber put its first vehicle out in San Francisco, but obviously it wasn't what anyone takes it to, you know, imagine Uber is today, right? This massive, globally dominating transportation service, right? But no doubt it was painful when, you know, I lost in the finals and didn't win, you know, the $10,000 in that, you know, second entry with that transportation idea. It stunk. Like, we were on the stage, had our uniforms on, we were like, just gave this badass presentation and people loved it. Unfortunately, we didn't win, but that's part of the journey. You enter a third time with a different venture 2 years later, and all of a sudden, you place in the competition, win $10 grand, and can use those dollars to bootstrap your second venture, which was this video conferencing software company, Vonvo. So— How did that end up?

How did Vonvo end up? Yeah.

Yeah. So I worked on vonvo.com for 3 and a half years. Put my blood, sweat, and tears into it. You know, a lot of long nights, a lot of, you know, just really grinding it out. Most, you know, knowingly, or the biggest pain point I experienced during my Vonvo days was I was a non-technical co-founder, right? I didn't know how to code coming out of college. I was a business major in college. So trying to build a video conferencing software company No doubt about it, it was really, really challenging. We didn't know how to write a single line of code. So I spent almost 18 months or so just looking for a chief technology officer to help build this software. And along that journey of 18 months, I got my source code stolen by one college developer. I had an offshore developer in Nepal take down my website the day after it was launched, after paying a Canadian web development firm a bunch of money to get it built. So I definitely went through my own trials and tribulations trying to build a said video conferencing software company. But after 18 months, you know, we found an onshore Brooklyn developer who had a fascinating background and amazing experience to partner up with. And, you know, after 3.5 years, unfortunately, although we had acquired a couple of paying customers and, you know, had built 3 different iterations of the product, you know, and kind of bootstrapped the company off about $150 grand, you know, which is not a lot of money in the world of startup startup financing. Um, after 3 and a half years, it just wasn't growing at the rate I was hoping it would. And so I kind of had to just like bury it in the graveyard, um, you know, and move on to the next venture, uh, which happened to be those, you know, uh, uh, notorious hoverboards, we'll call them. Got it.

Okay. Yeah. Um, so, so yeah, let's talk about the, the hoverboard. So if you want, um, yeah, I kind of— I mean, I do have some specific questions then, but like, if you could just give the overarching story, because Yeah, when I watched that 2-minute video clip of it, I didn't even realize it was that— like, I don't remember it like fully, right? I remember like it was definitely a thing. Um, but when I saw that video, I was like, oh my God, I think it said like Kim Kardashian or something, like they were on it, and it just went huge within like weeks. So either way, I'll let you tell us.

Totally. Yeah, no, so, um, basically, you know, The sort of long story short behind the hoverboard was late 2014, my two co-founders, soon to be roommates in Queens, New York, over in China, they discovered the hoverboard at a big trade show conference over in China, kind of similar to that of like a CES in Las Vegas, but over in China, and discovered the hoverboard completely by chance and random. Brought a few units over. I became fascinated with the device. We basically moved our office from a basement of an apartment building to an actual real office on Long Island, New York, bought a bunch of hoverboards. And ultimately, on a random trip to California, they get in touch with a really, really influential individual who just has interactions and is more or less best friends with all the different celebrities on the planet. When I say best friends, like truly best friends with all those said celebrities. And everyone who saw this device just became fascinated with it. And so when we're out in California, we learned a couple of days later, you know, that the famous Kardashian Kendall Jenner was interested in one of our hoverboards. And, you know, basically send a couple of those hoverboards over to her. A few days later, she posts this phenomenal video on all of her social media accounts, and it's of her riding our hoverboard. And she makes like 2 or 3 turns, and on the last one, she basically busts her ass. And so it's like this remarkable video, like as good as it gets, um, of her riding around her kitchen, then at the very end falling off.

And I think I've seen that actually now that I have like an image Do my— okay. Sorry.

Yeah. Yeah. And so the caption of that, of that post was got too cocky @Funky Duck, which was the name of our brand. And within 24 hours, that said post had over a million likes, over 50,000 comments, and our own Funky Duck hoverboard following went from literally zero followers to basically, you know, 20,000 overnight. And so that just was that lightning in a bottle sort of moment that literally tipped up our company, went viral overnight, and ultimately 14 months later, after basically doing well over $1 million in less than 8 weeks from the start of the company, all the way to shipping out thousands of hoverboards. And fortunately, you might recall, some of these devices started having battery malfunctions and people started falling off and breaking their ankles, you know, and then homes started burning down after exploding hoverboards caught fire. And although they weren't our hoverboards because we were buying a patented device from China with no battery malfunctions, all the crappy, dare I say shitty-ass knockoffs from China that were being built in, you know, washing machine factories and blue jeans factories, these devices started catching fire because their batteries were built with very cheap, inexpensive, low-quality components. And after about 2 dozen homes burned down by Christmas 2015, so literally not even a full year later, the government stepped in and banned the device. FedEx stopped allowing you to ship the device. And lo and behold, you basically had a noose around your neck if you were in the hoverboard game because you couldn't ship out your device to customers that were buying it. Right? And so Basically, 16 months after starting the company, I basically left because it just had ultimately turned into the fad product of 2015, right? And so you really couldn't operate the business any longer, and I decided to move on.

So two questions there. One is, what was the— just like when you guys woke up to that post and then it going viral, like Yeah, just what was it like? Like, I'm just curious if you could like kind of bring us there. Like, where were you? And just like, how crazy was it? Like, what did your website go down? Like, what, what happened?

Yeah, good question. So, uh, it was a surreal moment, right? Um, it was surreal even from, you know, the day that we heard that Kendall Jenner was interested in promoting our company, right? Like, we kind of, you know, if you— the analogy I give when I do a lot of my workshops, um, when I'm teaching or speaking at different companies and schools to people who listen to these workshops I do regarding the hoverboard story, I kind of compare the awe we were feeling was kind of like Will Ferrell in Elf, right? Like we were that freaking excited, okay? Like that's how excited we were. After that post goes live, you know, we're sort of just in this sort of daze, like, holy shit, did this just really actually happen? And, you know, you just basically start seeing your phone blow up, right? Like literally I got notifications on my phone for 3 days straight of just people, you know, literally second after second of the day following our account, Funky Duck. That's how much, you know, viral traction we had gathered. And, you know, it was also surreal because we were basically on backorder from day one. So, you know, basically we had about 2 dozen units in our office that we had moved into to sell at that point when that post went live. Yet we had a little bit of an issue. There was 150 orders that needed to be fulfilled. And 150 people that had paid $1,500 for our hoverboard, right? They had just paid a pretty penny to get one of our hoverboards after seeing Kendall Jenner promote it online. So it was a little bit of, you know, in awe that this had just really happened. But at the same time, holy shit, we got, you know, to get more units because we have a lot of customers that want this device. And those orders just kept flowing in. They didn't just stop after day one, as you can imagine.

Yeah, it's a very word-of-mouth, um, thing, I guess you would say. Like, because once somebody does it and maybe they take it outside and then a bunch of people see it— like, I, I could see how, you know, Kendall Jenner lit it, but essentially once it caught fire, besides the government shutting it down, literally there was no way to slow that down. Besides that, that was the Yeah, so another question, I'm just curious, do you think they will ever like take it back? Meaning like, do you think there's a chance they could come back? Because obviously your product was fine, uh, people could fall off, but people can fall off bikes too. I mean, that's with anything. So, um, yeah, do you think they'll ever change their mind on that, or—

Yeah, so it's funny you say it. I mean, basically, uh, these days actually, so now we're in 2021 And, you know, 5 years later, basically after those bans got implemented, you know, hoverboards are still around. Hoverboards are still purchased by, you know, kids and parents at Walmart. I kid you not, on Good Morning America the other day, they were talking about the top gifts this holiday season. And, you know, hoverboards were mentioned as one of the popular gifts that kids are still buying. So although the product you know, got tarnished very heavily in 2015 because of all the negative publicity that surrounded the device. It certainly put a stain on the device to ever sort of hit the sort of popularity and mainstream popularity that, uh, it had in 2015. Um, it is still a very fun device that people and children buy for birthday presents, holiday gifts, and the like. And You know, it's pretty just wild to think about that, you know, in 2015, we were sort of the culprit behind starting the fad of the hoverboard, but that, you know, still actually holds relevancy today, which is great to see, you know. From my side, I wasn't, you know, you talk about the journey before you had asked, like, we took a lot of punches to the gut in 2015. Okay, like, fricking hard punches to the gut. you know, being the market leader and the brand leader behind this device. And so whether it was, you know, lacking the inventory because we were on backorder from day one, or, you know, flooding of inboxes, right? Like, you imagine how many emails we were getting and how many phone calls we were getting literally after that post went live. You know, that was a wild year to be doing the hoverboard and to be not only just doing it but actually being responsible for creating the tidal wave of traction that came about from it. Right. So, um, being at the top of the totem pole in that world in 2015, uh, definitely required taking a bunch of punches to the gut. And, you know, unfortunately I wasn't, after 14, 15 months of working in that industry, uh, willing to, I wasn't willing to stay patient, you know, through all of 2016 or 2017 to see if, you know, we would be able to kind of come back to life and continue selling it, right? And so it just, it didn't work out on a multitude of reasons for me to want to stay involved in the business. You know, the two co-founders I had started with, they were the principal owners of the business. You know, unfortunately, you know, just some of the things like equity and whatnot that I would've hoped to have gained, you know, never came to fruition. And so I just decided to move on, right? And, you know, there was just a lot of problems, hitting this company and this industry all at once. And so it just kind of didn't make sense to continue on. And as part of the journey, it's why I do a lot of what I do today, right? I tell the story behind this fascinating story because I can think very— I still think very highly of all the educational business lessons learned that I gathered from the experience. And I try to kind of put that knowledge forward to other aspiring entrepreneurs. So they cannot make the same mistakes that I, you know, unfortunately had to go through.

For sure. That is wild, man. That— yeah. Um, so let's, uh, I know— so tell us, what do you do now? Uh, actually, so you, you help, um, like you do consulting, uh, from my understanding. You help people go viral. And— but I'll let you speak in, and then I do want to ask you, then my next question would be like How do you go viral, like in a planned fashion? Because it seems like you learned that, but with the hoverboard, it was maybe accidental at first, or maybe it was more planned than I saw.

So yeah, totally. So in terms of what I do now, to answer your first part of your question, these days I'm building an emerging media brand called When Going Viral. You can go check it out at whengoingviral.com. And that's the handle for all my social media accounts, @WhenGoingViral, @MaxRingelheim. You can find the work that I do, but basically I'm a sales and marketing consultant presently. That's what pays the bills on a day-to-day. And this sales and marketing consulting work that I do for different companies all around the world, about half a dozen right now, all layers up to this brand I'm building, When Going Viral, which consists of the consulting work that I do. It also though consists of public speaking work that I do. So that's kind of like a second arm of it. I do these fascinating, high-energy educational workshops regarding my hoverboard story and other particular topics within the hoverboard story, like e-commerce, building innovative products, how to go viral, a bunch of different subset of topics that I speak on and that I do paid public speaking, free public speaking related to. and these workshops tend to just be bulletproof. People just absolutely fricking love them, right? Like I just put them on the journey typically of launching Funky Duck, and I put them in the driver's seat and sort of have them go through what I went through, through this interactive high-energy workshop. And so that's another element of the When Going Viral business is the public speaking work I do. I also have my own podcast called When Going Viral. Which we'll make sure to feature this episode on, of course. And on top of that, I'm working on things like a book outline that I started writing years ago and things like some other different media-oriented projects that I believe have some potential to do a lot of good in this world and help educate the broader business community on the subject of virality and the subject of viral marketing and everything that's baked into that very deep subject.

Got it. Okay. And then, so with, uh, because it kind of goes together, I would imagine, like, if somebody wanted to be, like, successful in, in running an e-commerce business and, you know, going viral would be a part of that success, what advice would you give? And I just want to give a little side note, um, it might not be, uh, related, but there's a lot of people I see now, uh, like they say they'll create like an Amazon store or something for you, or like a Walmart store, um, drop shipping or whatever. I'm not in that world, so I'm not— I could be saying some of these things wrong, but, um, like, what are your— is that connected? And if so, like, what are your thoughts on that? And is it too good to be true? Because sometimes it seems like it is, that like sometimes people are like, yo, I like, this store works, these products sell, we're just gonna, you know, pay us like $20K, we'll set you up with a store and then you get passive income for the rest of your life. And I'm like, I don't know, man, that seems a little fishy, but maybe.

Yeah, yeah. So yeah. No, no, it's a great question. So I mean, you know, in the world of aspiring entrepreneurs who may be attempting to start e-commerce brands, right? Or create an e-commerce website, sell a particular product online, If you are interested in gaining viral traction around this said e-com shop, one of the first pieces of advice that I would give said company or said entrepreneur is make sure you are paying attention and have a dedicated fraud detection solution in place on your website. Now, your probably next question is like, well, why is that one of the main pieces of advice? You only learn it from getting punches to the gut like I got in 2015. That is that online fraudsters, and there's plenty of them out there, they love going after new viral products, new companies that are experiencing viral traction. Why so? Because typically there's so much flooded traffic going towards that said product or company that they can kind of hide away in their little sliver of online fraud and do their thing stealing honest people's credit cards like you and I. And typically be able to infiltrate a website because they're dealing with these thousands of orders or thousands of customers. And for the 1 or 2 or 10 online fraudsters that are doing the bad stuff on that said website, ultimately can just go and end up ruining your business if you're not paying attention to that online fraud. And when it comes to developing a viral business or a viral e-com shop, you automatically end up having a target on your back. Because these, you know, online fraudsters want to go and get your product because typically, like, your product, it's going viral because it's like the best out there, right? That's why people are going after it. And so when these online fraudsters get a hold of your said product, they can go and then resell that product on whatever said black, you know, market or dark market exchange, you know, at a premium, right? Because they probably just got your said product for $0 because they stole someone else's credit card, right? So that's one really, really important piece of advice to share with folks. And, you know, as it relates to like people having an affinity towards trying to, you know, develop viral businesses, like I totally tell them to go and get after it and to absolutely try and bake that into their said marketing plans. It's, you know, believe it or not, you know, extremely difficult, but at the same time, when you gain viral traction, so much of it just happens on its own, right? Once you create that viral spark, a lot of the added viral traction happens organically, right? Because you've created something that has these multipurpose audiences that are sharing, commenting, resharing with their set audiences, whatever it is that you might be selling. And so typically, it tends to have a little bit of that lightning in a bottle moment, kind of like what you were describing, like it kind of just happened accidentally. Oftentimes it can. It's sometimes very hard to plan it out, but there are definitely tried and true strategies out there for viral marketers out there. And some of the things that I like to share that can give you a better chance of experiencing viral traction. But there's typically never any guarantees in life. So the last thing you want to think is that there's guarantees in the viral marketing world. Absolutely not.

Yeah, it seems like, uh, you know, just based on how it worked out with Kendall Jenner, and obviously that's like, you know, she's one of the biggest celebrities in the world, so that it's a little different. But ultimately, influencer marketing, you know, it's kind of like I tell people with books, right? Um, and I think me and you maybe on one of our calls were kind of talking about this. The books that I've seen take off, like after we work with a client, um, that really take off, I mean, for the long term It's because the stories in the book or story were remarkable enough that people were telling their friends. So it's like, we can get it in thousands, tens of thousands of people's hands, but if the story isn't remarkable enough, I'll just say, then it doesn't spread from there. So, you know, you want to make sure that your product, your book, or whatever it is, is something that can spread like that. And then if that is proven to be a yes, that it is, then I feel like influencer marketing would be a huge way to go viral, right? Like, and that would be, let's just say people that have a million plus followers or something on Instagram. And, you know, obviously you would want to check, make sure they're engaged followers and it's like all legit and stuff. But if so, you know, you, I don't know what the fee for that would be, but you'd pay those people to promote the product and, you know, maybe you wake up a week or two later and, you know, it's gone, right? or gone in a good way, meaning like to the moon. So is that one of the strategies, essentially, like influencer marketing, would you say?

Not at all. I mean, like, look, influencer marketing has been around for decades, just more recently kind of got, you know, termed or coined influencer marketing. I would say over the last 7, 8 years is like kind of where that term has really taken off. But it's been around for, you know, decades before that when you think about, you know, TV commercials and the types of celebrities that they might feature in those said TV commercials, etc. There's no doubt that influencer marketing is a tried and true capability and tool in the toolbox to experience viral traction. I think from your side, you mentioned, you know, it's got to be a good story, right? And then, you know, that person tells their other friends, you know, about that story. I think that's very important as well. And I think what you're partially getting at is also like, It's gotta be a really damn good product, right? It's gotta be a really damn good service that you might be offering that, you know, there's some sort of magic baked into it or some sort of jaw-dropper effect or emotion that gets triggered, right? That really just stimulates that person who's experienced it there, but then wants to tell other said friends, colleagues, family members, et cetera, about that emotion that they got triggered, right? And so like the perfect analogy is like during the early portions of the hoverboard days, late 2014, early 2015, before anyone knew what the hell a hoverboard was, when me and my two roommates and co-founders were riding on our hoverboards around Queens, New York, I mean, we would have fricking people in their cars with their kids driving in their car and they would just stop in the middle of the road looking at what the hell we were doing and how we were just like gliding so seamlessly. like a duck, right, on a pond, uh, along the sidewalk or the streets. And like, that triggered that like jaw-dropper moment for the parent or child in the car. Like, what the hell are they doing? How are they doing that? I need to ask them more about it, right? And that's what the hoverboard offered, was this extremely unique sort of magical device, right, that people just were saying, what the hell is that? And that, that concept just fueled the influencer marketing that we were doing, right? Because we were working with hundreds of influencers and everyone from Jamie Foxx, Justin Bieber, to you name it, anyone who's anybody, right, was promoting Funky Duck on social media. And so that, plus some of these emotional triggers that our damn good product, right, was sparking in people, just only fueled that viral coefficient, call it.

Yeah, it's interesting. I'm curious what you think about this. Like, I, um, I always try to look at things and like, I'm very much like a minimalist, I guess you'd say. So, and I try to simplify things. So I think that it's definitely not easy. Like, obviously this is not easy to do.

Yeah.

But if you look at what it is and like why it works, to me, based on just the conversation we've had so far, it is easy in a sense of like You know, the hoverboard is the best example, right? Like, you created something that was really cool, and whether or not the, um, Kendall Jenner thing happened, like, obviously that sped things up dramatically. But if you just went out in New York like every day with that hoverboard, and you know, you could have got video content, put it on YouTube, and that would have sped it up. But say the internet didn't even exist, let's just say it didn't. Like, you could give it, and it would cost you some money, so you need some money, but you could give it, uh, for free to somebody in like every major city or something, or like some of the biggest cities and just be like, look, this is $1,500. I'm going to give it to you for free for the next month. I want you to go out in the city for like 2, 3 hours a day in front of the major areas. And just, and I think that alone, you would have eventually built multi-million dollar company, right?

Like, no doubt. I mean, like they're, you know, our thinking when we were getting ready to launch Funky Duck and when we got our website built and while we were kind of moving from, you know, that basement of an apartment to a real office, you know, to store our hoverboards and everything, you know, we were thinking that an influencer marketing approach made a crapload of sense. You know, like it just, it made sense. You know, if we could just have these big-time celebrities be promoting our business and promoting this product, it's going to speak for itself. But no doubt we were experiencing what you just described more or less, like, you know, people just inherently being very just starstruck in awe by what we were riding on, that could have absolutely developed interesting paths towards, you know, serious, you know, whether we're talking about hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in sales, like no doubt about it that that product at that time, given how new it was, could have easily created some other pathways. And, you know, one way or another, you know, the story is what it is, but it would've been super interesting to see what, handing out a dozen hoverboards to people for free in the biggest cities and, you know, near subways or whatever it might be, you know, populous areas could have done for us. But we just applied that gifting of a free hoverboard to our influencer marketing plan. That's literally what we did. We just gave these celebrities their own hoverboard for no cost. And they're just like, this is the coolest thing since sliced bread. So we're going to promote it so that our fans can see how awesome this thing is, basically.

Yeah, that's all. So I wonder, I'm just thinking for like any product now, like if you can create something, say it's a toothbrush, right? But you create like an angle with it, like a uniqueness about it. There's something, it's not your average toothbrush or something better, or doesn't even have to be better, it could just be different. Um, and then you gift it to some influencers. Um, obviously not all of them are going to, you know, promote you or something, but yeah, and then it could work, right? Like this could be for any product. It really just takes in the beginning, some creativity. Because I don't, I don't know how you guys necessarily came up with the hoverboard, but like, in my mind, I'm thinking of like, okay, there's a skateboard, people like to skateboard, so that's cool. Um, what if there was something that was different? And maybe just different, because I wouldn't even say hoverboard's better, it just depends what you like, but it's different enough that people will talk about it.

No doubt. Yeah, I mean, look, like, from our side, what's really interesting is like And we didn't cover this yet, but I'll just share it with you now. Like the hoverboard was invented 3 years earlier by an American inventor who got an American patent to a device that looked very similar to the device that we were selling, right? It was his US patent to this handlebar-less sort of two-wheeled device, but no one knew what the hell it was. And he never marketed it. And he never actually like put it out there because he was an inventor that just had the mechanical engineering, electrical engineering capacity to invent and build and create and bring to market a hoverboard and get it patented. But that product literally just stayed in stealth mode. It never literally turned into anything. And then it wasn't until us discovering it, you know, over in China in late 2014 from a Chinese patent owner, right, at a Chinese factory who had developed a similar-looking device for himself that, you know, we got very inspired by it and we felt like we could build a legitimate business around this said product. And that's how we were responsible for building the number one hoverboard brand in 2015. We weren't the inventors of the device. We were just the go-getter entrepreneurs that figured out a way to populate and popularize this device. And to the point of what was a global phenomenon in 2015. I mean, this thing was literally everywhere from India to Europe, to the US. Like it was literally everywhere. And you know, there are reports out there and it was wild to read in 2016. And it's still wild to say today, but like what was like one or two factories in China, what was one or two factories in China back in 2014, 2015, early 2015 that were producing this hoverboard device. That was the factory we were working with. Turned into, by Christmas 2015, there were reports that there were over 10,000 factories in China that were producing a hoverboard device. That's how viral the device went, but from a production capacity standpoint, and these were washing machine factories and blue jeans factories that were just literally assigning a couple of workers to reverse engineer the device that we were buying, the patented version of this hoverboard. These, these devices started flooding the US market and the European market by the tens of millions, hundreds of millions, right? Like, it was crazy.

Yeah. And this is why you, you need like different minds for, for teams like this, because like you were saying, like, you know, you could be the engineer or whatever that creates the hoverboard, but if you don't know marketing and like what to do with it, then it doesn't go anywhere. Like, it's still cool, but like And this is what Seth Godin talks about in a sense is like packaging, like packaging of a product is, I think, so for people listening, don't quote me, but I think he might say that it's even more important than the product itself, like how it is actually just packaged. So I find that interesting. So yeah, you guys kind of saw the idea and then you blew it up because you knew how to do the marketing and saw the opportunity. Just a side note, because I have to get this out, it's ridiculous, but I have to say this because with the toothbrush idea, I think I have an idea. What if there was a, a two-head, a double-headed toothbrush and it would save you time because it would, you could brush the top and the bottom at the same time, right? Dude, guys, somebody, but you know, you know, 3 minutes is the average brush. It's a minute and a half now. So, you know, you add that up over 10 years, you got a whole another lifetime or something.

So I can just, I can just see the ads on Facebook or something like, want to, want to get, you know, 10 more days back in your life or whatever.

Oh yeah, there's so many. I'm not even kidding. I might— I'm not gonna do it, but I might— maybe I'll tell a couple friends and see if they want to do it. But yeah, no, I just think what I've gotten out of this, um, I mean, the story is incredible, and your persistence in just continuing forward with everything is unbelievable. But I just think this was a reminder for me of just like, if you have that entrepreneurial bug or spirit or whatever you want to call it, like you can create a business out of anything. Like you could go to Amazon right now, like this is what I'm thinking of, like, you know, somebody could go to Amazon and just look at all the products that are the top sellers and toothbrush is just what came to my mind and just look and be like, why is that doing so well? How could I maybe tweak it or make it a little different, unique? And then, you know, sell that. And like, it's like the formula is already out there. It's just putting in the work.

Yeah, I mean, I love working with the companies I work with now, you know, I kind of, I'm pretty selective on the companies I consult with, because I want to try and help their businesses, you know, be super successful. It's not like I'm trying to turn every company I work with into a viral sensation. Like, I just personally these days have gotten the opportunity to you know, help build other companies' businesses. Some of my clients are international clients, and I'm just helping them be basically their US GM, right? And I'm helping create their European business here in the States, right? And, uh, there's just a natural, uh, affinity slash love that I kind of gravitated towards at an early age, you know, sophomore year of college, um, towards entrepreneurship. And for me personally, I know this will resonate with you, um, Tyler, like I just sort of, after going through the hoverboard experience, felt like I had more or less a duty to share the lessons learned that had come from this fascinating rollercoaster ride of a startup, you know, and of a, not just a startup, like global phenomenon that I was a participant in. Right. And so for me, like after I left that space, you know, And it sucked, right? Like, I felt like I was on top of the world for 6 months, and then I felt like I was in the shitter for another 6 months, right? But it just very quickly sparked in my mind how I had to educate the broader business community on the cautions, concerns, and warnings associated with going viral. And that was sort of the inherent mission behind When Going Viral, my current business, that still resonates with me today. Being able to educate the broader business community on the good and the bad that come with virality is going to help aspiring entrepreneurs or savvy businessmen that want to try and create a new business avoid the mistakes that I made, as well as take advantage of the things that we did well. So it wasn't all bad, that's for sure. We had a lot of big-time wins during that 14-month venture. So That was where this sort of inherent sort of educational mission of mine came to fruition. And that's why I do a lot of the blogging, podcasting, public speaking, talking on your podcast today to try and share and bring forward to those listeners of yours at least any one of the lessons that they hopefully got from today's interview.

I think that 100% resonates. And I think that's like very common with entrepreneurs. And that's probably why you said it would resonate with me is like, for me, the two things is, you know, when I wrote my first book, it was just, there's so many moving parts. It was just crazy. So once I went through it, I was like, oh, like I don't want other people to go through this. Like I'll help them with that. And then the other thing that we're building now called Find a Mentor, it's to like provide free mentorship for people because a mentor is what in the beginning changed my life. Uh, and I just think like it's always like you solve your own issue, and once you solve it, or problem, issue, however you want to look at it, and then from there you're like, oh, there's definitely others that have this problem, and then you can help them with it. So, um, so yeah, what I want to do, just because we're wrapping up here, uh, leave the floor to you. If there's anything we didn't cover that you'd like to share, please do. And then, um, let people know like social medias, website, how they can stay in contact with you.

Absolutely. Yeah. So first and foremost, thanks so much for having me on. This was an awesome conversation. Really love doing this. So we'll have to now meet in person somewhere in Miami.

I was going to say that. We got to, man.

That's the next time. Then we'll do the next episode so people know how lunch was. No, for sure. Ultimately, yeah, from my side, if you could go ahead and follow me on social media, I'd be super appreciative. So it's just @MaxRingelheim. And then it's @wengoinviral, just like how it sounds. Ultimately, from my side, that'd be super appreciative if you could follow my journey and the work that I'm doing on both of those fronts. If you've got a business that you believe could use some help and a little bit of guidance, I am always, always, always looking to try and advise, help, support aspiring entrepreneurs. It's part of my kind of giving values that I, you know, think on every day. So If someone's looking for some help, think of me as a potential resource for you. I'm always open to having conversations with folks. And if your business needed actual tangible help, perhaps there's a way to work together in a formal capacity. But I'm just genuinely very interested in always trying to be a supporting block to aspiring entrepreneurs and use my lessons learned and experiences to help add value. Lastly, I would say if you work for any sort of organization or entity or networking group, etc., and you are looking for a bulletproof story, super interactive and fun experience for your said group, entity, etc., I'd love the opportunity to do one of my workshops for you. These When Going Viral workshops, I do the surveys all the time afterwards, and it is consistently rated a 10 out of 10 in terms of enjoyment. So people just absolutely love it. and, um, would love the opportunity to speak at any one of your said, uh, events in the future. So thanks so much.

Of course, man. I'm thankful to call you a neighbor.

That's what I'll say.

Appreciate you coming on though, man. I really enjoyed it.

Awesome, awesome. Great stuff. Thanks for having me.