Badlands Media - America First Stories Ep. 2: Skip Holst

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

In Episode 2 of America First Stories, Jon Herold sits down with Skip Holst of Patriot Protect to explore the world of cybersecurity, data privacy, and what it means to build an America First business in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. Skip shares his unconventional path from data analytics into cybersecurity, driven by growing concerns over how personal data is collected, sold, and used by both corporations and governments. The conversation dives into the reality of modern data tracking, how everyday actions generate valuable information, and why most people underestimate the risks. Skip explains how Patriot Protect was built with a focus on protecting individuals from data exploitation while maintaining a fully U.S.-based operation, even when it meant slower growth and higher costs. He also reflects on the challenges of entrepreneurship, the importance of trust in cybersecurity, and the emotional toll of hearing real stories from people impacted by scams and data breaches. This episode offers a grounded look at digital privacy, personal responsibility, and the deeper motivations behind building a business that prioritizes protection over profit.   Skip Holst from Patriot Protect https://Patriot-Protect.com Promo Code: BADLANDS

That's a hell of it. Well, good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the second episode of America First Stories. This is a show on Badlands Media where we talk to our sponsors so that we can get to know them and you can get to know them. We don't go through the ins and the outs of the product or what they're doing, but more so who they are and why they're doing what they're doing. And last week's episode with Mo Benson was fantastic. I'd highly encourage you guys to go and watch that if you haven't. And I'm very excited about this episode, too. He is a newer sponsor to Badlands Media, but the field that he's in has always been one that interests me.

And I'm very curious to hear about his backstory and get to know him a little better. Let's bring on Skip Holst from Patriot Protect. Skip, how are you doing, sir? John, it's always a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me on. And thanks for the good folks to be listening. And we can chat about all the scary things in the world that keep us up at night. Yeah.

You know, even away from the scary stuff, I want to get to. to know the guy that's protecting us from all the scary things. And right off the bat, I got to ask. You know, I know I've seen you face to face without the, right now, like you don't have your camera on. Why don't you have your camera on for the people to see and not judging? I'm just, just to give insight to the audience. Oh, well, look, I mean, too.

I mean, firstly, you know, the answer is a lot less, a lot less interesting than one might think. But, you know, is that there isn't some, you know, I don't look like Bain for what it's worth. Tom Hardy, maybe. Well, that's very kind of you to say. No, how much. But look, it's just a basic one-on-one-level cybersecurity.

I mean, look, I can't do what I do on behalf of all of our customers if I'm parading myself around. I mean, our mission is our mission, and it's one that I've been passionate about for a long time. And frankly, you know, the things that I think about a lot are just, you know, government overreach, commercial overreach. is to say, you know, what private companies are doing, you know, with us. And so this is the stuff that I think about all the time. And putting myself out there, what's the point? It doesn't,

it doesn't matter. Gotcha. Great answer, though. So let's, let's get into your background a little bit. So, you know, obviously you do the tech stuff and with Patriot Protect and we'll work our way up to that. But you're a fairly young guy. You don't have to disclose your age. But if I would guess, I'd say late 20s, early 30s, maybe. Listen, the secret to that is, you know, proper nighttime moisturization routine. You know, you do we want to limit sun exposure, you know, SBF 45 at the least. I'm actually, I'm actually, I am quite a bit older than that, which is nice to, yeah, no, nice to hear. But no, you listen, you got to take care of yourself.

What do we do? Hydration. You got to hydrate. I mean, you got to be drinking. And if you have a couple cocktails on a Friday. wake up in the morning have some electrolytes you know get yourself gets yourself started black coffee and lifting and cardio there you go so you're an active guy you're in good shape i'm serious guys when when i when i first had the zoom call with them i was like this guy's about my age maybe maybe a little

younger so impressive that that's not the case but so have you always been like did you always know that you wanted to start uh the company patron protect like what did you do before this like what was your journey to get here yeah i'll tell you Exactly. Absolutely, and this is still the case, I very much would rather be a park ranger. Doesn't even need to be, you know, a national park or something like that, but just a nice private reserve or something. All I really want to do is go around in a, you know, a half-ton pickup and cataloged trees all day would really be a lot of fun. Unfortunately, there's a higher calling here. No, I mean, like any journey for anybody that's listening, or especially those that are

younger and trying to figure out like what they want to do with their lives you know i'm a lot less concerned with like thinking about a career or like a trajectory i think the idea of thinking in terms of like strategy versus tactics is foolish like you know i think about our lives as like you're swimming against a current it's like yeah if you're a strong swimmer you can kind of swim left right slow down speed up a little bit, but you're probably going to go towards where the current is taking you. And the reality is that, you know, the cybersecurity thing and the idea of identity in general has always, always since, you know, since a kid interested me. You know, it's like, who are we and what are we perceived as? And what is, what are we trying to be cataloged as by forces that are

much larger than ourselves? Yeah. Right. Like, whether, whether that be government or whether that be private companies. And frankly, at this time, like, I think 20, 30 years ago, it was like a no-brainer that the thing that people were most concerned with is the overreach of government and, you know, what the government is looking at us. And even before, you know, 9-11 and the post-9-11, you know, security fetish that we've all, you know, lived under for the last 30 years or whatever. But even before that, it was just like this idea of government overreach.

But now, even as we talked about, you know, the last time we chatted on air about, you know, FBI surveillance, is that it's the private companies, the commercial entities that are really, you know, that keep me up at night. This is the stuff that really concerns me. And I think we're thinking a lot more about, again, as we talked about with the government, just simply purchasing data broker data instead of, you know, this. You know, the stuff that I got passionate about way back when, I remember WikiLeaks was a big, big driver of just kind of public consciousness about surveillance and the nature of how data

and security are weaponized against us. Sure. And so the WikiLeaks thing, I think, was a really big kind of cultural tipping point for us to say, hang on, we've now been, because I remember this is like 2011 when the, you know, that, that, the video from that Black Hawk helicopter, you know, shooting journalists and stuff like that. That was, that was, you know, the big controversy that brought it all to the fore. And that was like, oh, hang on, the public is now realizing that 10 years. years ago, there was this justification for a large security app, you know, a security apparatus of around our cybersecurity. And now we are 10 years in, the public or only very small interest groups have been only cursory, in a cursory way, concerned with it. And now this, you

know, the NSA and all this, this huge apparatus have been built while we were asleep. And now we've got to do something about it. That's, that was a lot of the thing that really sparked my interest in this and ever since you know okay so that's interesting background but did you like always grow up were you always good with computers or did you like go into to college you know and like I'm going to take computer science I actually when I went to college my my yeah was my second year the first semester I took a computer science course like you know I'm going to get into coding and all these things and then after like one year doing Python coding and stuff I was like yeah this this just really isn't for me. And I wish I could say it was the foresight to know that AI would code for me,

but it just wasn't like up my alley. But some people, that's like, they're just so gifted with that they can like, their mind works in computer code. Like, are you one of those guys? Like, was that always your thing? It's such a good question. It's such a good question because this is exactly the kind of thing that I think is important for people that are interested in security to understand is that it is, yes, I am, you know, good enough with, with code and computers and stuff like that. But I think that the understanding of personal security, personal liberty and, you know, cybersecurity in general is actually much more of like a art than it is a science.

It is much more like a almost like this metaphysical thing, like this intangible thing that we need to think about and understand, right? So, you know, for instance, if you are a, you know, a general citizen of, of, of, the United States and you know you can't even go to a restaurant without having to take out a smartphone to scan a QR code so you can order mozzarella sticks you know what I'm saying these are just things that you as a person need to do to be involved just just to participate in our economy I just want to say I will unequivocally come out against the use of QR codes at a restaurant I cannot say how disgusting and unsexy of a, you know, you're trying to sit there at a table with people that you love or enjoy or want to, you know, take time out of your day, don't eat at home, you know, go out and spend a small fortune just to get some, you know, some chicken wings or something.

And then you have to take out your phone and look at your phone in front of your friends. It's just, come on, what are we doing here? Every restaurant owner in the world has an opportunity today to say, no. I will buy a $99 printer and put it in the back and buy some nice card stock paper and print out a damn menu. I love that. Thank you, thank you, John, for giving me the platform to get out my petty grievances. But yeah, so you as a person, like, just have to have these things in order to kind of participate in your day. And so for most people, you know, a cybersecurity level, like with, you know, for instance, from Patriot Protect is sufficient.

Now, let me ask you a question. If you were, if you were, I don't know, you were on a mission or you were you were driven by something such that you had a state level threat against you, right? Like, you know, let's say you were bin Laden or something. And you know, you have an entire, the West, all of Western civilization looking for you. Like that is, you know, you're going to need some more firepower to try to try to keep yourself private and keep yourself protected. Yeah. Right.

So that is not like a coding thing. That's not like a cybersecurity thing. That's not like a two-factor authentication thing. That's actually a much more, a deeper, like, what is my role as a human on earth such that other humans are interested in me? What are what are what are my behaviors as a human such that other people are interested in what I'm doing? So for the majority of us, you know, that are just, you know, going to have to scan QR codes to get our, you know, our mozzarella sticks. That is just because there are commercial interests that are interested in what you're doing. You traveling

throughout your day-to-day life is valuable because of the data that you generate. The data that you generate can give private companies more insight on your life and therefore aggregate that information to get a better snapshot of the potential population of customers in front of them and target you better by lowering their cost to customer acquisition, thereby increasing their gross profit. And that's what it's all about. It's just, taking your daily movements I don't mean this you know to talk about your digestion I'm talking about your daily your daily movements and turning that into profit so yeah that I feel again you know I know this is supposed to be about me that I feel at odds with I think that

that's wrong I think that if you are born on earth just by virtue of the fact that you were born a human you have you know some rights that are that are that should exclude you from, you know, having to just have your day-to-day living be monetized and commoditized. I think that's wrong. Yeah, I agree with you. And I do want to make this more about you. And so, like, and so I'm going to keep coming back to more of your background stuff. And you can just divulge as much as you want.

But, but, but, but I am curious, like, what, what got you into the security business? protecting all the things that you just described, because you're spot on with all that stuff. And I fully believe in the product that you support. But that's why I want to, you know, I want my audience to get to know who they're getting into business with when they purchase your product. Not only are they getting the product,

but they're supporting America First Company in you. And so like your, were you always on this career path? Like, did you start in this industry or did you transition over to it when you recognize these things? Like, what were you, what was your journey like getting to the point where you're at now? Oh, yeah. I mean, look, I've, you know, I've been working since I was a kid. I mean, I've, I've always had a job and I've always been, I mean, I was working in restaurants and, and, you know, working. I did a lot of manual labor. And I still do now. I'm just not paid for it, which I notice changes a lot when you get older.

That's, that's the beauty of homeownership and friendships where they all get you to come to do stuff. What happened? I was, I was getting paid 10 bucks an hour, which I thought was really good coin for the time. And now I'm just no longer paid for any of my house painting. Anyway, no, I did, I did, you know, work in security, you know, doing kind of data analytics for many, many years. And so that was kind of one of the ways in which I was able to understand large sets of data, using them for, you know, good, that is to say, using them for the things that I was interested in. But data analytics was always my background. So, yeah, you know, again, it's not, I still don't think that that's something that you need to have in order to be interested or get into cybersecurity because I do think that that's more of an art than a science. However, data analytics has always been my background.

So I worked with large data sets and, you know, pulling out inferences, you know, I don't want to get too fancy, but I've done, you know, a lot of work with, um, economic. econometrics and um you know regression modeling and stuff like that and that's kind of one of the ways that helped me appreciate and understand the nature of risk and that you know i think was much more of my background of science that allowed me to match it up with my background of you know the art of being interested in in data and privacy because i understand very intimately how these large data brokers and how these companies, these private, you know, these commercial entities use that data and try to pull out inferences about people, right? I mean, like if you have, you know, a data set available from, you know, the cell phone triangulation data, that is to say, the location data of one million people, you can really understand how much those one, what it is that those

one million people do and how they conduct their lives. Now, if you further, and again, this is what I learned, you know, doing data analytics. And I wasn't doing it for, you know, commercial purposes or anything like that. It was literally like insurance. Sure. And like actuarial stuff is just understanding, you know, how people, you know, risk and profile and that sort of thing. But I know how these other, these other commercial entities are saying if you mix, if you match that data up, people's location data up with their demographic information, you know, age, sex, race, you know, their income, their zip code, where they reside. Then you really start to paint a picture of who these people are and therefore how you can market towards them. Or if you hand

over that information to the government, you know, how that, you know, what is that person's call it just risk profile or something or whatever it is that they want to do to infringe on your liberties. Then you have a really good understanding. And now match that up with what I was saying earlier about, you know, you swimming against the tide. You know, your zip code is probably more predictive of your life journey than any other thing in your lives, more so than your choices, more so than your, you know, your whatever. This is this is the reality of where we live in is that, you know, these companies are targeting you based off of this demographic information to influence how you live your life and how they can monetize that.

And I especially cringe thinking about the kids. I mean, I could talk about that forever about how the kids are growing up in, you know, this kind of like surveillance state from private companies influencing even just the jokes that they have. Yeah, it's terrible. We talk about like the Instagram algorithms and stuff quite a bit, like how they specifically gear those things to you and then start to use those against you and steer you. And it's just, it is disgusting.

But so you were in analytics before this with insurance. I actually sold insurance for a state farm for a few years. And for this Catholic, almost like a co-op for a few years before I got into doing this. And so it's interesting, like, how you go from one to the other. But what made you make the switch? So, like, you went from analytics and you're recognizing all these, you know, all this data that's out there. When did you realize, like, how this data was being sold and, like, what made you start the company that you're working? that you own now that you're working with now yeah great question i mean there's two two parts

two ways to answer that question i will do both one of which um which is much more insufferable and tedious is the uh the conversation about being an entrepreneur and a small business owner um that that's the conversation i want to have you know oh god and i and here's the thing too like of course i will talk about this like because it is very interesting and it's also like a very American thing, right? Like in America, and I am no exemption to this, there's this, there's this idea of radical self-determination, right? Yep. Completely different than what I was saying before about like, you know, hey, pretty much your life is not your own and you're just going to go where this diet is taking you. And basically, you're a jerk. Can I swear on here? Are we allowed to do that? Of course.

Of course, can you. Okay. So you're some sort of asshole and you're just, you know, you're in a sewer drain and your life is going down the tubes. I do believe. in like, you know, this, this idea of, like, radical self-determination that is to say, like, your life is your own and you are able to make of it what you want to make of it. I really do believe in that. Yeah, that's like the whole theme of this show, man. Like, that's, I think, no matter how bad the government overreach gets, that's like what everybody's working towards is that radical self-determination that you're talking about.

Oh, my God. It's, it is, I think, at this juncture in our American life, the most important question that we could be posing to ourselves as people, as communities, as, as, you know, as individuals that want to change what their life is like. Because, I mean, there's so much that is that, that we are, that we deal with on an everyday basis that is grating and irritating to us. Like, you know, I, I cannot stand QR codes, but I know that that exists because there's a huge amount of, you know, know that of data and information to be and profit that therefore profit to be made about this i don't

know anybody that says i love my health insurance company right uh there you know so so there's there's reason that we want to break out of these molds that we're kind of born into yeah um and so yeah of course to you so like what what made you start start that journey it was first off i knew that i knew that I could not do so just starting out on my own and like leaving my job because, you know, if you have a family and you have responsibilities, you can't just do that. You have to, you have, you have got to have health insurance. You've got to have some, you know, hopefully you have a job with a salary that, that offers you know, a retirement package.

You can't just like, you understand compound interest such that you can't just delete. five years of out of your life to to wing it on a company on your own this small business and not be earning you know contributing to your 401k or whatever so yeah it was many years of of of of saying like I believe I have this passion I have this understanding of the world that I think more people are getting awake to and I want to deliver to them a an opportunity to take back that control the same way that I am passionate for. Yeah. And even though there, and again, you were very complimentary of my looks earlier, but I will

say that there are many more grays in me than in my head that I care to admit. And the reason for that was, you know, I have to kind of juggle two things while I was building this and while my, my, my co-founder James and I were building this is that, you know, we needed to just take that passion and put us, you know, keep us awake late into the night, wake us up early and say like, you know, we need to build this thing to give people a way out. Yeah, I did it while working and it's really hard. I mean, there's just, there's no way around that.

It's just you have to do that. If you want to keep, you know, the car payments going and, you know, the mortgage going and stuff like that, At the end of the day, something's going to have to give. We are all a pie graph of effort, and you just have to decide how big the slice is for the different parts of your life. Did you start the company? I will say, I do believe that over time, the size of that pie graph gets bigger. I'm sure you feel this way as well.

Like, you know, you feel more capable as you get older. Yeah, I mean, the kids are what, you know, that's like the biggest variable in there. because, you know, as much as I want to always be working and I pretty much always am when I don't have my kids, I try to dedicate as much time, like, it's a big question mark, as much time as, as needed towards them and what they need and their activities. And there's only more activities as they get older. But like, when you started your company, did you, did you have another job you were working at the same time? I know, a lot of entrepreneurs, they do that. When I started this, I was, you know, a fundraising for a Catholic school system. That was my full-time job for like three, three and a half years. And in the last like six months that I was still doing that, I started doing this stuff, you know, in the evening hours.

And then eventually I got to a point where I could transition fully over. There are still some people at Badlands that work both what they do at Badlands and full-time careers. Was it like that for you? Were you able to make the jump right away when as soon as you knew? I mean, that's a bigger risk. But just curious what that was like with you. Great question. I will tell you this. We took the hard route and I'll tell you exactly why. Yes, it took about, you know, three years of building, a building before I was, I was able to, you know, say goodbye to the W2.

Because, and we could have done it in 30% of the time. We could have done it in one year. But the reason that we chose not to was because we wanted this company to be 100% United States based. Sure. We wanted it to be an America first operation. And I'm proud to say that as far as I know, because private companies don't have to divulge this if they don't want to. And if they don't, you should be scratching their head wondering why they don't. Is that we have 100% of what we do based in the United States. And that is not easy because.

in a lot of ways, it's more expensive because labor is more expensive in the United States than other parts of the world, that a lot of the, a lot of other cybersecurity options use. They often use South Asian, South Asian or Southeast Asian labor in order to take your information. I won't name names, but to take your information and, you know, offer your, you know, these cybersecurity tools to you. we did not we refused to do that that's simply that's simply a line in the sand that we refused to cross because we wanted this to be 100% USA based I'm sorry that's just the way we feel that is not a principle that we will turn away from I don't think you should apologize for that that's like you know this whole show is America first stories we I have um outside of Badlands I have

another company it's our it's a sponsor of ourselves like that's the reason we did it was to support the creators at Badlands but we sell lotion and our biggest thing is like everything a hundred percent american ingredients everything the the people we buy from it makes it a little more difficult harder more expensive yes but but it's it's so worth it in the end but how many employees do you do you have do you guys have well for for i mean we are a small team i for for cyber security reasons i won't tell tell exactly how many we have but we are a very small team and we keep it that way because we want to have our you know we talked about data analytics earlier, we want to have our, what we do, the actual substrate of our business,

you know, the opt-outs and the cybersecurity tools that we provide to be algorithmically based rather than human-based. That is to say that, you know, a lot of the other companies that may offer these cybersecurity tools have humans touch them in South Asia and Southeast Asia. And so we keep it, I mean, our servers and our, you know, the computer aspect of this business is very robust and extremely strong. And so that is bigger than is our human element because we want to reduce our attack surface. And we talk about this all the time, is that like it doesn't matter, you know, 256, you know, AES, encryption, you know, all of these tools, multifactor authentication, all that cannot, cannot protect against somebody, an employee somewhere deep in your company,

clicking the wrong link. Yeah. All of these, you know, all of these, yes, but that's the point is like what we do to design our company isn't just solely commercially oriented. Like we're not just saying we're hiring or not hiring people because, you know, we need more hands. We're having it with security in mind because we want to reduce the amount of people that, you know, that could be our attack service. And we want to make sure that we don't have any, I will say this, again, more of those grays are coming because I am just turning myself and James is turning himself into four or five different people in order to, you know, make sure that that works.

but we we care too much about this to to jeopardize our customers from somebody's carelessness. Yeah, so let's talk about James a little bit. How did you guys, are you guys like lifelong buddies? Did you always have a dream of going into business together? Or, you know, how did that relationship come about? Great question. We've been, we've known each other for 15 years. And we both came from the data analytics world and got to know ourselves, got to know each other from there.

And similar to me, I mean, you know, next time I'll let him speak for himself. But similar to me, we had this like mutual burning passion for cybersecurity and also just distrust of these institutions that are meant to, you know, safeguard us. And so we were like, hey, you know, we're strong-minded, you know, strong-backed guys that, you know, want to change the world in whatever way that we can. and that's how we did it is just getting together and just pushing this hard hard hard just based off of the mutual passion that we have for it because we refuse to let ourselves be you know downtrodden by these by these companies in the government overreach like when did when did the idea spark what was it was it your idea was it his idea where you guys just like having beers and like man we should just this is this is

discussing we should really start this company like how did it come about listen the beer aspect of of our of our company is that can't be understated very important to unwind with a couple of cold ones whenever possible and let me tell you our company party is fun and we always try to do so in you know fun locations yeah that's awesome you know so it was really both of us it was literally both of us in many conversations, but finally just sitting down and being like, listen, man, here's how we can do this. And it's not going to be easy. And we're going to have to grind for many years to make this happen. But if you're interested in this at all, here's how we would do it. And similar to me, I mean, you know, we're not born Rockefellers. We're just regular fellows that, you know, had an understanding of both data analytics and also this passion.

for cybersecurity and also a vision for seeing where the world is going. And the answer was, we don't like it. We don't like it and we want, we want to have another option and we want other people that we care about to have another option. And that's literally how it started. That's awesome. Did you, like, what is the, the upfront effort? Like, when you wanted to, you went from idea to launching.

was there like a huge gap in time? Like with Badlands, you know, I was kind of already doing this already. So it was a pretty easy thing. I could just turn my channel into Badlands Media and brought my friends on, right? But like when you have an idea of like, I want to start a cybersecurity company, like, how long does it take? Like, what do you have to do in terms of upfront effort to get the ball rolling? Great question. In general, and I'm since you already know this, I'm speaking to the audience here.

in general with entrepreneurship, and I'm sure there are many people that are not nodding along with this, it is a mistake to spend too much time tinkering on your product before you take it to market. It is a mistake to say like, well, it's not quite perfect. I don't want to do that yet. We don't have that luxury in cybersecurity. And that was, you know, if we knew, you know, if if the only thing that we cared about was turning a dollar into a dollar 50, we would have not gone into cybersecurity. We went into cybersecurity because this is something

we care much about. And the thing that powered us through it is our passion rather than it was our, our ability to say, hey, we're gonna make a dollar off of this. That was not the point. With cybersecurity, your reputation is the number one thing how do you get people to trust you you know with their information i mean it's funny because when when somebody signs up for our product and we send them our search and destroy form and that's

to say that you know here's the information that you give us and we go and search it and destroy it around the internet um with that's even what you fill out is so much less information than you tend to give companies right like it's uncomfortable to give it still you know still still but it's so weird how unblinkingly we just we we share it with other companies that isn't a company that you're giving money to to help protect you it's just it's crazy it's it's it's it's like you know how you're like um you know going back to the to the fictional restaurant i'm angry in my head uh is you know it's like 13 dollars for mozzarella sticks all right i guess i really want mozzarella sticks meanwhile you're on your phone you're like uh should i buy this dollar app

I don't think so I'm going to sit on this for a while. It's this weird cognitive dissonance that happens. But with cybersecurity, yeah, you can't go, you can't put out a minimally viable product. You have to have an unimpeachable reputation and an unimpeachable product. So yeah, no, it took easily three times longer than it would have if we had gone into business doing any other thing, simply because we wanted to make sure that the tech was unimpeachable, that it wasn't touched by, And this is only a problem kind of in the last five years or whatever that it isn't touched by AI and to make sure that it's a sound product for people to, you know, entrust their family's lives with. What's the competition like?

I mean, I got to imagine there's just thousands and thousands of companies out there that do this. I can tell you exactly. And the answer is not what you think. The competition, our biggest competition from people becoming a Patriot Protect customer or not being a Patriot Protect customer is whether or not they are interested in this at all. When somebody becomes a Patriot Protect customer, they're not like price comparing different, you know, cybersecurity solutions. They just aren't. People join us because they're like, oh my God, I didn't even know. know that this was an option for me and I didn't even or I didn't even know that there was a threat

level against me that I needed to protect myself from. You know, I talked to, you know, a lot of the other shows that I go on and talk about this and they're just like, yeah, I just didn't even know that this was something that I needed to do. And furthermore, now that I'm a customer and understand what you, you know, what Patriot Protect has removed that, you know, from, from the internet about me everyone is going to have to do this like everybody needs to do this if they haven't done it already it's the reason that you're you know your your your phone rings um saying hey this is officer blah blah blah you're in trouble we need to confirm your address etc etc that's because these scammers and these you know are are going on and finding better and

better information about us your heart sinks when you get a when you get a call like that it's terrifying. Most people don't know it's fake. This is why you're you're going down to a CBS and buying Apple iTunes gift cards and the amount of $500 to an officer on the phone. It doesn't make sense when you when you step back and you realize like it was crap from the beginning. But in that moment, you don't know that it's a problem that you need to safeguard yourself against. And so it doesn't take much for me to get passionate about this with, you know, to understand that this is people's lives that are being toyed with for a buck i just i can't abide by it i'm sorry yeah that's so so is there not like a lot of competition in this in the space because i mean i just thinking about it's like

oh yeah obviously there's probably a bunch of of cybersecurity i mean it makes total sense from like the the individual psyche level that you know people not even realizing they need this and or should be doing it or didn't think it was available but you know when if people were like price shopping i got to imagine like you coming into this. Did, did you think that the American psyche was what would be the hardest part? Is just like people not realizing it? Or it's like me going into it. If I were to start a cybersecurity company right now, I'd be like, it would be a deterrent. It's like there's like there's got to be so many companies out there. Like how do I, they have such a head start. How do I even get into this? Does that make sense? Absolutely. And and I do have an answer for your

question, which is we don't even think about that. We don't think about our competition. You know, we think about in the sense of them being competitive with us. They're not competing with us. And I think they're not competing with other companies in that realm. There's two things that we do differentiate with is that we make sure that we are 100% USA-based. That is completely unique. Nobody else does that. And so for that reason, it's a no-brainer for me.

And then also, it's not like we're more expensive as a result of it. that. Part of the reason that we keep our team small is, one, we reduce our tax service. And two, we want to keep our prices low. We don't want to be more expensive than anybody else. What's the point of that? Again, if we wanted to get into business to be rich, like, I don't know, I would go dig oil or something. I don't know. I would go do security for, you know, for, you know, oil tankers going through the Strait of Hormuz. I wouldn't be doing this. But the point of this is that, you know, we are, our competition is scammers,

relying on the fact that people don't think about this. Yeah. That's a good answer to that. Last question for you here. What has been the most challenging part for you with the business that you? doing man it's been so much i don't even know where to where to start give us a surprising one a surprising answer i think the most challenging part it actually it just it hit me um i didn't realize that this was going to be it and and james and i kind of didn't realize it as well and honestly

it's every time somebody reaches out to us saying giving us a story about how they were scammed or how they were attacked or hurt, you know, by somebody that found their private information online. It's every time it's like that wound opens every single time. It doesn't get any better. It doesn't get easier. Our heart breaks, you know, when people reach out to us with these stories about, you know, unfortunately it happens a lot you know people people that are older people that are susceptible to

you know older people that are you get messages saying you know my grandson who I thought was my grandson called me or sent me a text message and said that they were in trouble and needed money and I didn't know that it was a scam the way that these scams work are so well developed in how they pull on people's psyches and exploit the vulnerabilities of their goodness of their hearts. Yeah. I didn't realize how kind of devastating that would be. And that is by far, aside from the grinding hours and the, you know, the passion and

having to, you know, put things in my life and our lives aside to make sure that this is an option for people, that was something I was not even thinking about when we started it, just how devastating these stories would be. And ironically, that is also the one thing that I think makes it easier for me to keep going is knowing that we are making a difference and we are improving people's lives and giving them some peace of mind in a world that is not offering it for them. Sure. And so, you know, for that reason, you know, for the, as we call it, like for the same price of keeping the porch lights on, you can have that, you know, that peace of mind. It's, it's just, it's very gratifying. One more question. I lied. What is the worst scam that you've seen pulled on, on somebody, one of your customers? Like, what is the most amount of money or something that they've, they've lost because of these, these scammers that you could have protected against?

I mean, in the last week. I mean, you know, again, Because, no, really, I mean, like, it, that is, the wellspring of that information is, is boundless. I mean, you know, people reached out to us recently saying, I lost my truck to a scam. There's home title theft. Oh, my God. I mean, people getting in with pig butchering scams and like. Big butchering scams? Yeah, basically it's like when, the term comes from when, um, scam.

put a bunch of feelers out there, right? And they, you know, they text a bunch of people. They get someone on the hook. And what they say is they fatten up the pig as they butcher them. Or, you know, before they butcher them. So basically what they'll say is like, hey, you know, there's always some like love interest involved. And somebody saying like, hey, you're cute on text message or something or whatever. And the reality is that, you know, this is people, people fall for these things and they'll show them i'll say hey if you give me fifty dollars i'll invest in bitcoin and they'll show you a return and they'll show them a screenshot of a fake return and they'll keep sending more and more money and more and more money of course their return is not fake it's not real

it's fake and so that's a it's called a pig butchering scam gotcha um yeah love the love interest scams are devastating you know um often people that are bereaved people that are widows um can can for this. It's really, really sad, but these scammers prey on people that are, you know, that are emotionally injured because they've recently lost their spouse or whatever. And, you know, there's a fake person on the other end of it. I mean, it's, it's sickening what, what these scammers get away from. And I feel it just that it doesn't get easier. So yeah, I mean, literally, and just in the last two weeks have we heard of people losing their trucks, losing, you know, you know, in a day they gave because they thought that their grandchild was in trouble

and they needed to send bail in the amount of $6,700. And that was the entirety of their life savings. You know, it's just, I mean, it's constant. It really is constant. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's got to be gratifying, though, to know that you're helping to avert some of those phone calls, the more you get your message out there. But, let's get by appreciate you coming on.

What's your website? Patriot-Protect.com, correct? Correct. Yeah, Patriot-Protect.com. Also, and I did this last time I came on, because we're such swell fellas. We'll make sure to double our discount. So if you sign up with the code Badlands,

you'll get 30% off. And I think we're going to have that live for 72 hours. Awesome. Because, you know, I mean, look, you got to help people. You just, you can't, we're, we're not. not greedy folks. We are in this to make sure that people have an option when they didn't even know there was one. So that's what we're here to do. Yeah, we appreciate that. And we're recording this on Friday, but this is airing on Sunday. So hopefully you'll, you'll run that from Sunday through

to, what would that be Tuesday-ish? But yeah. Oh, yeah. We'll get it straight. Appreciate the conversation. Appreciate the time. And appreciate what you guys are doing, not only with your business, but supporting Badlands Media. And appreciate you taking the time to tell your story today. So thank you so. Thank you. much listen a guy a guy like you has the eye to see where it's something's important and you know our appreciation for you uh given people you know the voice to talk about this sort of stuff that's a real service so thank you oh well appreciate that and folks i hope you enjoyed the second episode of america first stories i'll be back next week with episode number three i'm not

going to say who it is yet but um i think you guys will we'll be pretty excited about it skip you take care and uh we'll see you all next time Thank you.