Nuanced. - 27. Tim McAlpine: Entrepreneur & Founder of Cowork Chilliwack

Episode Date: July 20, 2021

Tim McAlpine is the founder and CEO of Currency Marketing, and the founder of Cowork Chilliwack. He is also a creative entrepreneur, father, husband,  Director for Mount Lehman Credit Union and Director for Chilliwack Economic Partners Corporation. Tim McAlpine lives in Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada. He is the President and Creative Director of Currency Marketing, a digital marketing agency specializing in helping credit unions attract and engage with young adults. Tim believes that credit unions and the credit union movement need to work harder to prove that there is a difference and that it matters. Cowork Chilliwack is a collaborative workspace. They provide a community of like-minded business people including solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, remote-workers and small teams that call Chilliwack home. In this conversation, Tim and Aaron discuss entrepreneurship, small businesses, family, credit unions vs. banks, social media, Cowork Chilliwack, Currency Marketing, and so much more!Cowork Chilliwack:https://www.coworkchilliwack.com/Send us a textSupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Tim McAlpine, it is an absolute pleasure to sit down with you. I think that you have this unique approach of constantly innovating and constantly working to be a great entrepreneur. And I think that that is something I haven't had the opportunity to hear about enough. So I'm hoping you can do a brief introduction and then we can start from the beginning. Sure, my name is Tim McAlpine. I call myself a creative entrepreneur by training. I'm a graphic designer and started my own graphic design firm 31 years ago, if you can

believe it. So I'm somewhat unemployable, never having a real job other than that. And over the years of morph from kind of local graphic design firm to a specialized marketing agency, renamed our company several times, currency marketing is the current name, and work with credit unions all over North America, providing a financial education program that they licensed. And then locally, started something called Co-Work Cello Act about five years ago, and it's a shared workspace for entrepreneurs. And it's kind of a side hustle for me, but it's a really neat facility where a bunch of people work out of.

That's awesome. I really want to start from the beginning because I think that entrepreneurship is almost like a mindset, and I'm very interested to know how that started for you. My first entrepreneurial gig was I lived in Penticton growing up, and my first job was McDonald's, and to show my age, I was making $2.35 an hour. And I was the fry guy. They wouldn't even put me on the grill. I wasn't good enough. So, but on the side, my passion growing up was BMX, freestyle BMX. And so we started my buddies and I, a team called the BMX Express Freestyle Trick Team, and we got our first paying gig at Cherry Lane Mall. And it was going to be 200 bucks back in the 80s. So that for three 13 year olds. It's pretty cool. So I went to my manager and asked

could I get Saturday off. We've got this opportunity. And in my mind, I've escalated this to some confrontation, but he said, no, you've got to be here Saturday. And I think in my mind, I've ripped up that paper hat and just said, I'm out of here. But I think in reality, I just didn't show up on Saturday. And that was sort of the start of it. I could, rather than trading my time for hours, could I create something that you could sell and market? And so that was the first taste of entrepreneurship for me. And then, Over the years, we did that for quite a while. And then my first kind of real job beyond that is when we moved to Chilliwack,

I worked at Apex Signs and became a graphic designer there when I was 17 years old. But I was also getting stuff on the side. And when I went to college as well, I went to University of Fraser Valley for graphic design and always kind of had a side business and it just sort of morphed into that. I didn't really know otherwise. That's so important because I think a lot of people get stuck in this nine to five. I need to be working for someone else. What does that look like type of experience?

And you set such a great example because you're not just doing one thing. You're always got a few going on that are pulling at your mind. And it seems like you're constantly busy innovating the businesses that you're already involved in. And so where I'd like to start is where does that come from for you? because it seems like you're constantly updating. Like, you have the studio and co-work Chilliwack. That's become Studio C. When I was listening to your podcast with Matthew Hawkins,

you were talking about how you keep just re-updating and changing things. And I think that that's where entrepreneurs might go wrong, is that they have a vision, and then they can never update the vision. Yeah, that's a lot to unpack. but one of the, I mentioned going to UFV for graphic design, and it was a two-year diploma course. In the second year, I talked to one of the professors, Mirko Jacoba, and I said, so what kind of jobs can I get? And he looked at me and he says, there are no jobs for graphic designers. And I'm like, what have I invested this time for?

And he said, you have to create your own job. and this was a group of 30 people in this cohort going through this and to this day I would say there's less than five that actually ever worked in the graphic design industry because at the time you had to create your own job and I found that that just stuck with me forever that whole notion and then another piece that stuck with me was don't fall in love with your solution fall in love with the problem. So when we think of what we do with credit unions

and attracting young adults to that, we've gone through multiple iterations of what that could look like. And really how it works for the time might not work five years later. And so how do you just reimagine that? Still, I'm a huge believer in focus and specialization from a business standpoint and positioning

and marketing and so forth, and so forth, but from like a personal standpoint, I'm a huge believer in kind of a generalist approach and trying to figure things out and constantly reinvention and learning and so forth. And so I'm not exactly sure where that comes from. Both of my parents were bankers and worked in that industry. My dad was CIBC for 37 years, kind of doing one thing. And and my mom popped around a little bit. She was a substitute teacher for a bit and then worked in the bank

and I don't have necessarily entrepreneurial examples that I saw around me. I just, I don't know. Were you comfortable with the risk? Because I think that that's where a lot of people jump off the bandwagon is it all sounds great to start your own business, but then when it comes down to it

and you're relying on that as income, people decide to stay safe. Yeah, I think a big mistake is getting a business loan and renting a space and then hanging out of a sign and just sort of waiting for something to happen. There's so many terms now like side hustle and the grind and so forth that didn't exist back in the day. But to me, a business should grow. if it's anything to do with your personal skills or so forth, it should be something that you're kind of doing on the side and you're almost forced into it.

And so to me, there's very little risk. And the best time, I think, to strike out on your own is early 20s. Like before you are married and have kids and a mortgage and just this huge overhead, that's when the risk really, I think, suffocates people and they're stuck in this job that they absolutely hate and see no way out of it. But even in that case, carve off a little bit of time rather than sitting in front of the TV, do something in the evening that you're passionate about and see if you can grow that into something.

I think that that's important, but I've also seen people fall off because they're like, I just worked like a 10 to 5 and now you want me to go home and you want me to start working again on something. They seem to have, like, I know a lot of artists who are like, I can't, I can't do that. Like, that's too much. And so I'm interested to, is it something you're so excited to go home to do that pulls you into it? Or is it a mindset of like discipline and putting that in? What is it like for you? It's a combination of what you're passionate about, but then also trying to figure out what is the widget you're selling.

Early on when I was trying to figure out my graphic design business, I went to a conference. It was called Mind Your Own Business, and it was in Mexico, actually. And the keynote speaker was he'd written the Michael Gerber. He'd written a book called The E-Mith. And if you can imagine all of these turtleneck wearing tutti-frutty graphic designers, that are, my work is so special and individual. And then the keynote speaker at this conference is saying, you need to treat your business like a McDonald's and document and franchise

and just figure out all the pieces that you can replicate and so forth. And to me, that was super exciting to hear because I'd always thought, how can you kind of productize what you're doing versus just being so specialized in selling hours and so forth? That was sort of the first cue for me to, okay, there's got to be something beyond just, I'm kind of rambling, but back in the day when I started McAlpine graphics, I did logos, and I think I did about 500 plus logos in the upper Fraser Valley. And all of those were, you know, it was X amount of dollars, but it was a lot of work, and there was nothing that you could replicate

with that but over time figured out were there certain things or certain markets or certain types of clients that could use the same thing and I've totally off track and forgot what the basis of your question was but I don't know it's a constant evolution yeah and I find that some people really struggle with the risk taking so I'm interested right to see whether or not you did it through discipline and saying like you know what what I need to give an hour of time to this or if it was something that you look forward to because for the podcast, it's something that for the most part, I look forward to doing. And so if I'm doing it at 8 p.m. while we have a TV show on or something, I'm willing to put in

that time because I believe that it is worth the time and the investment for the impact on people. And so I'm interested, is it discipline or is it passion that drives you? It's both. And I think you're a prime example. So many people are their own worst block. They just, I wish I could do this. Oh, Aaron, you're doing this podcast. That's amazing. How do I do that?

Well, you just do it. Like, you just say, I've got this vision. I'm going to do it. You get out of your comfort zone. I'm an introvert, like big time. And for me to kind of self-promote and things is difficult. But cold calling, calling that client that you think. that you could benefit them, volunteering, getting involved, like, it's just a matter of

getting off your butt and doing it. That's awesome. And that is something I wanted to get into, is that you are an introvert, and you mentioned that in the podcast with Matthew. And I think that is one of the areas you really faced your adversity and you really took that on because for so many people I know who are introverts, I totally understand Rebecca is an introvert and it is a challenge to get out of your comfort zone and to face that. And I'm interested as to what that process was like for you. And what called you to do that? Because I think the other analogy I have for that is I'm not a math person. I hear so many people say, I'm not a math person based on not doing well in math 11. Well, that's one course with one teacher. Like, it's not proof that you're not a

math person. Yeah. For me, starting my business originally, I started really formally in my second year of college and it was just word of mouth. I had set up a small studio in my parents' basement, which was great, no overhead. And then it just became referral after referral after referral. And early on, I was charging very little. And then slowly you get more confidence and you, someone will ask you, what does a logo package cost? And you kind of go, $200? okay and then eventually you're saying three thousand dollars like and and the more confidence you can just build up and be be okay with that and just do good work and not expect too much from it that just kind of snowballed and led to one thing after another and and when i look back at the

trajectory of my business it's gone through so many different iterations and i've never been afraid to scrap that phase and move on to something else because we got to 15 employees and that's why co-work Chiloac, the facility is so large. It was filled with people working in the marketing firm. And I kind of took a look at that and said, I'm not loving this. How can I shoot towards something in the future that I, and do everything I can to get there and slowly get to a smaller company. Yeah. And so drive passion, it's all of that. Like, You have to love what you're doing, or you're not going to put the energy into it. But you also can, I never satisfied with what I'm doing right now.

So it's interesting, as I look back over 30 years of being in business, there's like these distinct chapters that maybe at the time I didn't know what's happening. Can you tell us about choose a business and tell us about some of those chapters? So I'll talk about mine. McAlpine, I'll go back to the very beginning. I started with McAlpine Graphic Communications, and it was home-based graphic design firm. And slowly but surely over the first 10 years, it morphed into a full-service ad agency, moved from there to an office above Paragon Printing on Alexander Avenue, next to a piano lesson office and probably 100 square feet grew out of that when I needed

to add an employee because I just couldn't keep up with the work that was coming our way and moved into a facility. It was about 2,000 square feet and I leased it but then sub-leased a portion of it to a photographer and then in that space we grew to about eight people and And we're just sort of doing everything for everybody, primarily in the Upper Fraser Valley, maybe as far as Langley. And then one of my first big clients was First Heritage Savings, Local Credit Union. And I liked the work. I liked what it was about. I joked that they had a vault.

They paid their bills. And then on the other side, started to get, like we started to do work for Harrison Hot Springs Resort, Tourism, Chilliwack, the Chilac Economic Partners, and it was a really diverse group of clients, but I saw some client concentration coming and thought, hey, could we specialize? And so around the turn of the century, rebranded to currency passport marketing and ran two divisions, currency marketing, specializing in credit unions, and passport marketing, specializing in tourism. And had dedicated people for that. And always knowing that maybe one of those would would be the end product. I heard a quote from somebody, you can be a doctor and own a funeral home, but just don't have it on both sides of the card, right? So with currency and passport,

it was literally two businesses under one roof with different specialists working on that. And sure enough, I found that credit unions, although on the surface might sound boring, was more attractive. These were companies with dedicated marketing budget, with a very similar need in different communities, and we could replicate what we were doing. So then that really became, to the point I made earlier, could I productize somehow?

Because graphic design and advertising and marketing is all a service business, right? You have a budget, but everybody's looking for a very specific solution. but around 2005, I got very early involved in what could social media marketing look like. And so YouTube was brand new. Facebook started in 2004, Twitter in 2007, and companies were trying to participate in some manner. And so we came up with an idea for a credit union in Alberta. they hired us to help with their young adult problem. They had an aging membership

and were looking to engage a younger population in their membership. And so we took that as kind of a research and product development project and came up with this idea of offering a free checking account for young adults in the province of Alberta. None of the big banks were doing that at the time. No other credit union was doing it. And so we decided to make a big bang out of it, and they went for it. And it was called Young and Free Alberta.

And we hired a spokesperson through a kind of American Idol-style contest. And it was pretty cool. You got a vehicle for a year. You got a MacBook, a camera. It was what you're doing now for a $35,000 a year. salary and a dedicated website with the notion that you needed to blog daily and create a video every week and be the face of this generation at events and online. And it worked super well.

And so I had a conversation with the CEO at that credit union early on because I saw that wow, this could have widespread applicability and I said, what do you think if currency marketing retains the ownership of this program and you're our founding partner and we license this to other credit unions and he being kind of an entrepreneur and Alberta is the Texas of Canada just cowboy said yeah go for it and so we took that and I packaged it up in such a way that we could license it to other credit unions and it was one exclusive license in each Canadian province in US state and so we hopped to young and free Texas power powered by TDCU and Young and Free Michigan, powered by Michigan First Credit Union and New Mexico

and ended up doing, I think, 13 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces and ran that program for about 10 years. And now it seems novel in Cuba. At the time, it was pretty wild and cutting edge because you're pitching this credit union CEO and their board on, okay, we're going to give full license to a 19 or 20 year old to represent your brand with no editing, no censorship, and we're just going to, we're going to trust them to do what they are. And this is the new world of social media, and we need to get involved. And they were pretty bold and said, go for it. And so that was another chapter.

So really ran that. But what I found over those years is that it matured. And so much of that stuff was being pulled in-house. And it was a very expensive program to run and so forth. And we were kind of deputizing these young people to be financial experts and found that our mileage would vary. So we were doing a lot of backfilling of content and so forth. And so that's where our latest chapter evolved from. So around 2014, pivoted again and came up with our It's a Money Thing financial education

program that we licensed to any credit union, not an exclusive license in each state and province and now have about 130 credit unions that license that program. We retired young and free as it kind of ran its 10-year course, but it blew up our reputation. And so 90% of our businesses in the United States. Wow, really? What is that like? How does that compare to being in Canada? Well, what's great, and I know your audience isn't in the United States,

but to a degree, people in the United States are very insular and only know what it is. And we get paid in U.S. dollars, and they have no idea that the Canadian dollar is much, much and less. So that's fine. That's great. But because we specialize in a very specific need and industry, they're all the same. They're community-based financial institutions that in the U.S., they're a little bit different in their not-for-profit. And a real key mandate for them is financial education and doing right by their communities and really reaching and teaching. And so we came up with a product that could be universally used with very little.

product support. It's content. We do animated videos, infographics, presentations, articles, social media graphics that are all branded with the credit union's logo. We supply those to the credit union and they use them as they will. And even that, constantly kind of tweaking and adding to and making it more valuable and so forth. And so yes, it's a graphic design business. It's gone for 30 years, but it's got distinct chapters and, and constantly morphing. That's brilliant. And I think something that really shows the evolution

and your willingness to adapt and change and grow and constantly put in a business perspective that I think needs to be more discussed because I think your ability to look at what you want to see and realizing that it's a service and how do we turn this into a product and how do we make sure that our overhead costs aren't too brutal. All of that analysis is I think something that a lot of people never get to experience or learn about, but I'm interested in the credit union side.

How do Canadian credit unions and American credit unions differ in your view? And why credit unions? What makes them different than a bank for you? I mentioned my parents are bankers, and they worked for one of the big five banks in Canada. And what people don't realize is in a relationship with a bank, there are three parties. There's you as the customer, the bank is the company, and the shareholder that wants a return on their investment. And the bank's loyalty is not with the customer, it's with the shareholder.

The shareholder by definition of the stock market is to maximize shareholder returns. And how do you maximize shareholder returns? You reap the most out of the customer. And so people don't realize that there's a tripod in that relationship. Whereas with credit unions, they're kind of under the radar and I think it's kind of the worst name, credit union, do I have to be in a union? What is it? It's like a credit card company.

They're essentially local community banks with only two people in the relationship. The customer, in their case the member owner and the institution. And what's amazing is the members own the credit union. And if they get involved, like any democratic process, can influence what that looks like. So you mentioned U.S. Canada. The major difference with the U.S. and Canada credit union and financial marketplace is there's also a third layer in the U.S. called community banks. and these are typically locally owned, in many cases, by a family that started a bank. And so they look like and act like credit unions.

Credit unions in the U.S. are tax exempt. They're not for profit. So they're restricted in who they can serve. But they also, there's also way more of them. The U.S., like there's 6,000 credit union brands in the U.S., not to mention all the branches of those. In Canada, there's under 300. And so from a business standpoint, as we got narrower and narrower and specialized, it's pretty slim pickings. There's 275 credit unions in Canada and that keep merging.

So that's a diminishing marketplace for us, whereas the U.S. there's 6,000. And I mentioned we've got 130 credit unions as clients, so there's lots of room. But, yeah, to me, that's the fundamental difference that people just don't understand. And in Canada, our five big banks are some of the biggest banks in the entire world. I did not know that. like the RBC, which is the largest bank, makes billions and billions in profit every year. And where do they make that from? They're customers.

And they'll lure you in with a free checking account. But you're not necessarily going to get the best rate on your mortgage or so forth. And so you can strip it all down to numbers, but if you look at the community impact that, local credit unions have. It's amazing. I think that that's really interesting to get into because I think what you've done with co-work in currency marketing is also community impact, but you're also working with an organization, a credit union, to help community impact. And so I'm interested to learn more about at least the Canadian credit unions that you've worked with and what they do and perhaps some of the United States and what innovative things they're doing to make an impact because you and I spoke

privately about Van City. I'm interested to know more about what those community impacts look like because I've been a member of Prospera Credit Union for a very long time and I've gotten to experience people actually having my back when I brought in a check when I was like 13 years old and it was like they told this person emailed me saying oh like if you send me your Xbox I'll give you like $600 for it but I just need to give you $1,000 and you just need to go cash it and then send me off the money. was young so I had no idea I was being scammed but the credit union people were like this seems like what is going on here what's the deal and then they noticed it was a scam

and helped get me through it and then I've also gotten to see Prospera the rink and its impact on raising awareness of their business but also making sure that we have a local rink so I'm interested yeah well Prospera is a good example you mentioned Van City their Canada's largest credit union which large doesn't necessarily mean good or bad, but they've managed to take their scope and scale and just have tremendous community impact. And really, it drives their business. They have a triple bottom line.

Is it good for the environment? Is it good for our members? Is it good for communities and so forth? And so everything they do comes from that standpoint. It's not based on, is it good for the shareholders, right? Is it good for the members who are the shareholders, but yeah, it's just fundamentally different. You mentioned someone knowing your name. I find that credit union employees and branch managers are given way more autonomy.

It's not all based on a credit score. It's Aaron, we trust you. We know you're going to repay that payment. And I know your friends and family are going to keep you account. Like think of it as a member group, right? And so the more detached and anonymous that all becomes, the more it just has to be run by algorithms. And Toronto has to approve this and sorry, you don't reach the criteria. If you don't have a 700 credit score, well, then we won't talk to you. Well, who knows what went into that? Maybe there was just a couple late credit card payments or something like that, right? And so,

I feel that I have a real passion for very small credit unions. I'm actually on the board of Mount Lehman Credit Union in Abbotsford, which is a one branch. They've got 10 employees, less than 2,000 members, and to me, that's the perfect-sized financial institution. And you might say, well, what about all the conveniences and so forth? And credit unions are cooperative and work together amongst themselves, and each one will have a central credit union per province. that provides back office. So they have the scope and scale of large banks. Like, they have a ding-free ATM network, right?

If you have a Prospera card, you can go over to Van City and use it and not have that thing that comes up and says it's just going to cost you three bucks to take out 20, right? So there is that cooperative amongst cooperation or cooperation among cooperatives that credit unions have. I don't know, to me it's a no-brainer, but it's still a very under the radar solution. I noticed that because even Rebecca, when we were discussing, she's with TD, and when I was explaining, like, hey, just so you know, you should consider working with Prospera or Coast Capital or some of these other ones, she was like, well, I don't have, I don't want a credit card. And I was like, oh, well, it's not about a credit card. It's similar, but it's provincially run.

and then your money is actually even more backed by credit unions than they are by banks because banks, they have like a threshold of over $80,000 where credit unions, if something goes wrong, I think the province fully backs them financially or something. That was a change in, you're too young to understand. But in the financial crisis of 2008, when everything was going upside down in the U.S., there was a lot of worry on how viable financial. financial institutions are. And so the province of British Columbia, which actually runs an insurance fund for credit unions, increased that coverage to unlimited. And so it used to be

100,000 and as were banks. And banks are governed by a federal regulator. And that across Canada, they'll cover you if the bank was to go bankrupt, up to 100,000 of your deposits would be returned to you, whereas in B.C. credit unions are covered unlimited. Now, there's an asterisk of that. It's not going to cover things like mutual funds or investments there because of those are outside of, but if you have that in like GICs or in your savings account and so forth, If a credit union in British Columbia were to go bankrupt, which has never happened, you're covered unlimited. Which is always the fear, though, that I've heard from people is that they trust the big

banks to survive more than the credit unions, even though there's this opposite thing occurring. If you look back to that financial crisis, things really went bad in the United States. The Canadian financial institution fared really well during that. But you had things like Lehman Brothers, Bank of America, had a huge bailout from the federal government, and all of this was infused. Like Wells Fargo is another example of the crazy amount of manipulation. And they were creating up to 10 accounts for people

just to boost their total customer base. That was a Netflix documentary, right? Or they talk about what Wells Fargo did. But we have such short-term memories as people. Like we're thick of it in COVID right now, and I feel like in two years people won't even remember it, right? They'll be on to the next thing. And so to me, money in personal finance is one of the most important things

that people can pay attention to, and yet it's totally off the radar. It's boring. It's not necessary. is my parents set me up at TD or CIBC, and I've never questioned that, right? And so... That really frustrates me because I do think that financial literacy is part of the solution to so many problems. I hear us talking about universal basic income, and in my mind, the problem isn't with the amount of money people get. It's what they do with the money, or how they look at money, or how they invest their money, or how they approach their money.

And I understand that some people are in dire straits where it's literally, all their money goes to paying for the basics. But when we're talking about universal basic income, that's not the example a lot of people are using as to why we need that. They're talking about the artists and these regular people. And in my mind, giving people the basic tools of how credit unions versus banks work, how to approach money, how to try and save money. These are the conversations that we should start with.

And then if all of those don't show the result that we're looking for, then to consider those. but it really feels like we haven't fully understood all of the financial basics yet. Yeah. Yeah. You need to have more money coming in than going out. Like you mentioned, why do you do this and that? And that's the fundamental piece of business.

I started co-work Chilowak in 2014. I mentioned we had really specialized in credit unions in the U.S. and so far, I felt detached from my community and I had this big space and I was leasing at the time and I had this circular conversation with my landlords. I've been in that building for for 21 years now and leased it for the first 15. And every month, my two lovely old land barons would come and ask for my check and they would go around to all of the different businesses or properties that they own and collect that and have a peek and how's it going oh it's going good you don't seems quiet in here yeah there's not many of us in this big space I probably don't need it

I'll probably give you notice when my lease comes up next year why would you do that you're such a good tenant because you won't sell it to me why do we sell it to you you're such a good tenant because I don't need all this space and finally worked them over and was able to buy the space in 2015 and really had re-excited about what I could do with it. And with my travels, because with all of this going to the U.S. and so forth, I think I've been in 42 states now. I've just got a few more to check off. But I saw an emerging idea, co-work spaces, especially in larger centers. And this was probably 10 years ago and thinking, hmm, could this work in Chilliwack? And so when I bought the space, I had that

in mine and tried a little area with some open desks and that filled up and did another reno and that filled up. But in the back of, so to me, Coert Chilowack does good. It's a stepping stone for entrepreneurs that maybe they're home-based and they're looking to go for something bigger they need somewhere to to separate that and so forth and so but it was always yes it's going to do good but it actually has to pay for itself and so that's the fundamental thing that that i think people miss and there's just in all aspects right they go in way too far and and you mentioned risk i i think it's way riskier to be an employee with a company for 30 years. I don't disagree. I think that we just have this culture,

though, that that is the safe route. And if that company goes under, then you switch to a company that's identical. Well, if you think of a company that's in trouble, what's the first thing they're going to cut? Headcount. Yeah. The owner of that company is the most protected. Yeah. They can minimize their expenses and so forth. The employees are going to be the biggest expense and and so I don't know and putting all of your eggs in one basket I think the ultimate example of that is being an employee yeah I don't disagree I do want to get into co-work but I want to wrap up this discussion on credit unions why Mount Lehman what jumped out of you about this credit union

um relationships I had a really great relationship with the general manager there at the time and was looking looking to consolidate a number of things including buying my building and when I could put a business plan together and talk to actually like the CEO of financial institution about the vision and what this is and wow this is an amazing idea we'd love to get involved versus I don't know if this totally meets the criteria and the ratios and so forth right it's betting on and so I like being involved with organizations where I know the owner, or the person running it or who has

decision-making power, that it's not just looking into a screen and going, okay, this isn't going to work, right? And so I found, and so I mentioned consolidation and mergers and so forth. In 2000, let's go back to 1995, there were 130 credit unions in British Columbia. As of today, there are 36. So less. Less, more members, more assets, but just consolidation, like you wouldn't believe. Yes, I just saw that Westminster merged with Prospera. Exactly.

Both Prospera. Exactly. And so I think, terrible branding. Terrible branding. I think many credit unions are chasing scope and scale and becoming shitty little banks. You can bleep that. No, that's fine. You're the expert.

Why try to compete with RBC and TD that are so much larger with scope and scale rather than partnering with other credit unions and being autonomous and serving your community and I don't know, that's a bit of a sidebar. So you think they're chasing to try and become, like, because Coast Capital has recently done something like that, correct? Yeah, Coast Capital, which is British Columbia is, depending on how you measure them, either first or second, there are approximately 500,000 members, I think, about 18 billion in asset center management.

Van City is larger. Van City has said, we're going to stick with BC. This is, and primarily, they're primarily Vancouver. They're in the Fraser Valley, they're on the island, but it's Van City, right? It's a very specialized name. And Coast Capital, which was the merger of three credit unions about 20 years ago. They used to be Surrey Metro Savings, and there's one on the island and Richmond Savings as well. became Coast Capital with from the very get-go that they were going to go coast to coast and at the time the federally regulated credit unions was not an option

that became an option about five years ago and they were the first to do it and so they are BC base but their plan is to go coast to coast and it's a bold vision but how does that resonate in Ontario right when there are a local choices run by local people, it's, I think that's a pretty tough vision to execute. Like in Shark Tank, when they talk about you're in the middle, it sounds like you're either with a big bank where you're with TD, those big names, or you're with something small where it's local to you and you know the community. The middle is tough. They've decided to go right into the middle. Yeah, the pursuit of is also a bit philosophical and maybe driven by that general manager of that credit union that I mentioned, but he used to say, the only thing in nature with the absolute pursuit of growth is cancer. That is philosophical.

So think about that. If that is the only thing you're doing, and that's your entire pursuit, and not that I don't believe in capitalism and so forth, but it has to be balanced with something more. Yeah. I think you, that's actually a really interesting point. I think you balance that really well with your work with co-work, with work with credit unions and stuff.

But what is your viewpoints on something like capitalism? And we hear a lot more right now, this idea that maybe capitalism isn't the way to go. And I don't think I agree with that. I think that it's the only system we know of that actually works, despite many, many, many flaws. But it's one of the only ones. So I'm interested to hear your thoughts. Yeah. I love the American dream.

Like another passion of mine over the last at least 10 years. has been startups and what's involved in that. Like, you hear about the Uber's and the Airbnbs that, you know, there's venture capital that fuels it and it just burst, but there's unintended consequences that I don't think are fully grasped. I like the idea of social capitalism. Like a startup that I think is phenomenal is, Kickstarter. And Yancey is the founder of that. He did raise capital and has benefited his early

investors, but they flipped to a C-Corp, not going to an IPO or flipping it or so forth to re for those early investors to get their 100x or whatever they need. But no, they made it a benefit corporation or a B Corp rather without the goal and so and even Kickstarter as a platform is really interesting and that it's giving are you familiar with Kickstarter a little bit that's where you can put a product and then people are willing to like vote or pay for it they pay for it and it's a platform to bring products and services to market and so that to me is really interesting, but there's always unintended consequences. Like you think of Uber, we're going to disrupt the taxi unions and so forth. And then Uber itself becomes this evil entity that

is skirting employment law by having contractors that are underpaid and have no rights. And I don't know. Like there's, and then on the other side, I'm not a huge proponent of unions. In their early form, yes, when there is exploitation and so forth, but when it gets to a point that a grocery clerk is making $40 an hour or something, it doesn't make sense, right? I do believe in capitalism and the Western way, but it has to be balanced with social responsibility and people in mind. I think that that is an important point, and it also kind of leads into what I want I talk about with co-work, because you are creating the space, but I don't know if everybody realizes all the meticulous detail I think you've put into it that makes it such a positive,

creative space. And so I'm interested first to ask, how does Shark Tank inform that? Because to me, I go through that place all the time, and I see a lot of hints of Shark Tank. So right when you enter, there's this door opener that I saw on Shark Tank. And so I see these little bits and pieces and I'm interested to see if you've ever if you watch the show or if you I do watch the show I don't maybe it's subconscious I didn't actually realize that that door puller was a shark tank product I think it's theater to a certain degree like it's but the people are are getting investment and it's growing and so forth like so co-work Chilliwack, my vision from the get-go that it would be this creative hub of

entrepreneurship and so forth. And your interaction with it, I think, is a bit subdued. So prior to COVID, I felt like we were really creating a vibe and things like doing our monthly startup grind talks and creative third Thursdays and something on Saturdays called ChilliHack and so forth. And I can't wait to get back to that. or there's a bit more of that entrepreneurial vibe and the open hot desk areas were filled with people

and lots of chatter and so forth. And so I want to get back to that. That's a bit of a sidebar. But to me, it's creating an environment. The same thing you've done with your show, right? You start with a notion of an idea and then you create a community around that and it grows to something.

And you're not expecting huge gains from it, but I bet it's open a ton of doors just by putting yourself out there. And so you didn't go into this saying, I'm going to make a million dollars off of it, but if I connect some pieces, you interviewed Chanel, well, now you're doing some work for him, right? It's all reciprocal. Absolutely.

Reciprocity is a huge notion, and the more good you do, the more good comes to you. And I think people can get in such a funk of, negativity and so over well why didn't it happen to me and why did it happen to him and well because he went out and did it yeah no i completely agree and that is one benefit of the podcast is i feel like this is my i'm i'm an antisocial extrovert so i can be around groups of people and i can try and be lively but i much prefer conversations like this where i can actually get to know you like the whole idea of law school and like the events that they have is you go into this big bar and

then you try and talk to the lawyers and the lawyers know that they're big deals and they know you want a job. So there's this little cat and mouse game going on. And I have no interest in participating in that whatsoever. I'd rather have a seat, have a nice long conversation and get to know a person. And networking event is my worst nightmare. Yeah. Oh my God. Because there's nowhere to be. And then you feel awkward approaching people, especially when they have their name on the door or when they have this big experience or big name. And so I really, appreciate this because it's an opportunity to really get to know someone's struggles, their successes, their failures. And so that's partly where I want to go next, is what frustrations

have you faced being an entrepreneur? Hmm. Every day is a million little decisions. You never know what's going to happen. It's going to be a good day you get a new order for a new client coming in or or something happens and you lose one I don't necessarily think about that it's frustrations it's just part of the part of the grind right and and you've got to embrace that and I think maybe I'm sometimes frustrated but then the alternative is I could never imagine going and getting a job like just does not compute yeah so I'm very grateful of what I've built and those that have helped me build it.

That's awesome. Well, let's get into co-work then because I'm interested to know how that started and who's on the team and how do you come to decisions and tell us more about creative Thursdays and those types of elements. So co-work Chiloac currently is an 8,000 square foot facility off of the airport road on Harvard Place. I say currently because we're going to expand. We've purchased an additional unit.

It'll be adding an additional 3,000 square feet in the next few months. Wow. Yeah. And with some expansion of the studio space as well as more offices, and I think it's kind of perfectly time for coming out of COVID and the regeneration and so forth. So all that to say, it's a shared space of entrepreneurs, of all shapes and sizes. The original thesis was more around the creative services industry and video and photography and graphic designers. and realize that from a business standpoint, business model standpoint,

those folks don't necessarily have a huge budget for taking on extra office space and so forth. So expanded it. And so you guys are there with the law firm, and we've got some accountants in different types, all shapes and sizes. And one thing that kind of has gone away with COVID is some of the water cooler talk. Everybody has their mask on in the halls and goes and closes the door. in their offices, but it's, it's, the original kind of pitch for it was the home-based entrepreneur that's either had too many conversations with their cat or has overstayed their

welcome at Starbucks. And so it's a mix of small, medium, large, extra large offices and open desk areas that we call hot desk. And it ranges from hot desk light is, is two days a week for $99 bucks a month to a private office starting at $3.99. So all included, it's pretty, when you compare that to say I'm going to sign a five-year lease and then I've got to do my own hydro and outfit my own leasehold improvements and hope that this business is going to go, it's an alternative to that. Yeah. So I really think that one of the unique parts is it feels really.

accessible and it feels like a real office space. It does and perhaps even better because all the details are there. So when I say that, I think of like having Fabriz in the bathroom, having really good quality coffee, being able to have the access to the printers and all these details are taken care of. And I think one area that listeners might laugh is the quality of the toilet paper is even there. Like when you go into those big, big banks or big businesses, they always, you see those parts start to drop off, and that's not what has happened with co-work. As well, you also have these great inspirational quotes.

So can you tell us how you come to design these space? So the original, it's a little bit different, and we're in a quasi-industrial area. So when I first leased the space 20 years ago, it was a big open warehouse. And so I designed it for our design firm at the time, including a really large photo studio because we have a full-time photographer

and then over the years have done one reno after another and especially I mentioned in 2015 buying the space took a fresh look at a whole fresh coat of paint and some improvements that way but it's always been our home first

and then it was inviting other people into that and so it was designed as our office space. And so slowly but surely we've worked ourselves into a corner. Locally, there's just Michael and myself. Michael is a co-work manager, but he also does work in currency marketing, so we share that. So there's just two of us on the currency team that are in. Irene, who's our VP of Operation. She's in once or twice a month, just taking care of bookkeeping and so forth. But otherwise, it's everybody else. So it's kind of... like there's a library that's filled with design books that kind of what's that all about

well that used to be our meeting room right and and so it to me it's always been um another project for me i'm not an architect but i designed the space and and had an architect seal the drawings yeah uh and continue to do that and so it's it's a passion project but it's viable. And to me, that whole big thing is my side hustle. It's not my core business, but it's something I love because it got me back involved locally and reconnected with this community that I love. That's awesome. And I think that that does go to reconnecting because I wanted to ask a little bit more about what it's like to have such a successful business, and this is what you talked with Matthew about as well, such a successful business, but not in your community. It's

succeeding, it's growing, it's doing great, but here in the Fraser Valley, most people might not even know. No, and trying to describe, oh, it's a money thing, it's a financial education program that we licensed to credit unions. You can just see. Okay, well, I also have this thing called Co-Cillowack and it's a shared space for entrepreneurs. Okay, tell me about that. It's definitely a easier thing to talk about. And I've always been really passionate about the creative entrepreneur industry whether it's tech startups or or creatives and wanted to give a home to that uh everybody else has although this group is invited and welcome to be part of rotary and chamber of commerce they probably don't self-identify as that's my that's my group um whereas

so another hat that i wear is i'm on the board of sepco the Chilawak Economic Partners Corporation, and then they have two committees that I'm really involved in, the Chilawak Creative Commission and the Chilawak Innovation Network. And those are my people. And so could I do something where those people could feel comfortable and be part of a bigger group, and that they're not just stuck in their home office? And so that's what drives that. And a piece of it is we had this big empty photo studio that was for a while there, just Tim's hoarding problem of just everything that he couldn't unload. I decided to clean that out.

And so when we started CoWRechelawak, one thing that grew out of that was, well, we've got this space that could be a great meeting space and could we do talks and so forth. And well, if we're going to do talks and so forth, shouldn't we film them? And so we added a camera or two. now it's kind of out of control. Yeah. Okay, we have to talk about that, but I want to ask first about working with Michael because I think he's a great person when people come in.

He's incredibly friendly. He's got a good sense of humor, as do you. And so I'm interested, how did that partnership come about? I hired Michael. He's been with me for 10 years. He's actually a former credit union employee who worked for Coast Capital in their IT department, but he's from Chiloac. And so when we were building out our young and free program, I was looking for an additional program manager,

someone who could manage three to four of these different regions. And Michael was hired to do that. And as we transitioned out of that, but also started Co-Work Chiloac, and it made sense for him to be the Co-Work Chilowak manager, community manager, his official title for that. And that's cultivating, growing, finding new members, making them. feel welcome, taking care of, you know, the gears, the payments and coffee and so forth, but also building a community. And like I said, pre-COVID, I felt like the community was really going strong and we want to get back there. So, yeah, Michael's been with me for 10 years, and he's a great face for just taking care of that. And so I'm not involved day to day with

co-work Chilliwack. I kind of hide out and do my thing and take care of other things, but it's been great. That's awesome. Tell us more about Creative Third Thursdays and those type of events that go on. Yeah, and so Creative Third Thursdays is something co-sponsored by the Chilawak Creative Commission and Co-Work Chilowack. And there are, I think, 10 people on that committee. Each one owns a month, so it's up to them to either host it at their facility or our, doors are always open about four of them five a year at covert chiloac and those are talks by creative entrepreneurs or someone interesting in that that world we've done a number of field trips like we went to dan swatsky's imagination corporation in yero he's someone you should interview

holy smokes if you don't know dan swatsky he's the person who just had like an IPO or something right No. No, it's a different person? You would know him locally. He created Giggle Ridge, which became the Coltis Lake Adventure Park. Okay. That's all from his mind. Yeah.

He's an unbelievable artist that, and he builds amusement parks that are built in Yarrow, put in shipping containers, and sent all over the world like Saudi Arabia and the Caribbean and so forth. No way. Yeah. So much hidden talent. Yes, and so that was a field trip, an amazing, and about 40 people went to that one. Our next one for that, we're actually taking the summer off, and we're doing our first in-person creative third Thursday in September,

and Amber Price is hosting that, and she's going to do a tour of the mural festival downtown. And so that's a really cool, and it's not just for creatives. I think everybody's a creative, and somehow in grade two or three, they got it beaten out of them. But there's an inner creative in everybody. And then Startup Grind is something that I got involved with about two years ago. The first chapter of Startup Grind was in Silicon Valley, and then the founder of that kind of franchised the concept. And so Startup Grind, Chiloac, is one of 600 plus work.

worldwide chapters. It at that time was co-sponsored by Google. It's since broadened. They have Amazon, AWS, and Microsoft and so forth as sponsors, but it's a monthly talk with a, typically a tech entrepreneur, but any entrepreneur. And so that's something that I hosted. I kind of didn't love doing it virtually, so I haven't done one in a bit. But again, starting September, October want to get back and doing that in the studio. That's awesome. Tell us more about some of the people you've had on in the past. Dan Sawatsky was one of them.

My last one in studio was Brian Minter, which was amazing. There is a local treasure. You talk about entrepreneur. A person I hear is going to be very hard for me to get on. You can get them. Okay. Yeah. You can get them.

Who else? I had Amber on. She's not a tech entrepreneur. but an amazing entrepreneur in her own right. Who else? Colin Smith, he's a local tech entrepreneur that's had great success. Yeah, I think I've done about 20 plus of them.

That is awesome. I'm really interested to know now about Studio C now and how that has gone through iterations. What's coming in the future? Well, I mentioned that we had this photo studio which morphed into an event space, which added some cameras. And then one silver lining of COVID is

it's really done well through doing virtual event production. And that's been kind of another side passion of mine trying to figure that out. We now have 11 cameras, an ATEM switcher with 40 inputs, and I think there's like 25 screens in there. and it's ideal for virtual production, meaning the talent is in studio, but we're broadcasting out. And so we did like a hub insurance their employee summit. It was all produced from there, but then broadcast to all of their branches in Western Canada,

all of their employees essentially. And then so that pivot that a lot of companies have had to figure, out how do we still put on our events. We did the Chilliwack Give-Aathon with the Chamber of Commerce as well as their International Women's Day event and others like that. We had our provincial election, so the MLA debates we did in studio.

What was that one like? Because that one jumped out at me as like, you were also taking on a civic responsibility to make sure that you, voters are informed. And you helped put all of that together and make learning more about what's going on in your community more accessible. That was led by the Chamber of Commerce and we partnered with them as well as Robbie Snooks, he's a great, he's been my mentor for video production. His company is called For the Win Media. His big thing that he does locally is all the

Chilliwack Chiefs live streaming and video production and so anyways that whole thing was interesting in that we had up to six candidates but how could they all be in and properly social distance so I'm up in the rafters hanging plexiglass between these folks and trying to figure out what all the different camera angles would be and but so things like that are interesting because it would typically be held at say the cultural center with a closed audience of 500 people maybe live streamed as an afterthought but this was live streamed as the primary audience and so the engagement of being able to look into the eyes of the actual MLAs versus you

watching online and they're actually looking at an audience so that that was great but but in that standpoint you can reach you know three or four thousand local people yeah and get that message out I thought that went really well yeah there's a lot of plate spinning keeping a lot the thing's going. What is that like to design a studio and to work with somebody else because you don't have an audio video background and neither do why, but seeing you accomplish so much in the space is really encouraging to someone like myself who's still learning the basics. Yeah, I find, again, it comes back to no excuses, figure it out. There's a YouTube video for everything. And not only that, there's five YouTube videos with a different point of view on everything,

or 100 or 500. And so to me, when I originally, Robbie had an office at Co-Work Chilliwack, and I went to him and said, I'm thinking to put it in a couple cameras in, and he said, do you want the red pill or the blue pill? Because there's no going back if you go into this thing. And so he gave me some advice on some early equipment. And, of course, that's like five generations ago now. And if there's one piece of advice on AV equipment, it would be buy once, cry once.

If there's a, and you've probably experienced this, right? If you've got a microphone and there's one at $100, but there's one at $300 and you think, well, I'll try the $100 one, but I know I want to get to the $300 one, well, then get the $300 one, save up and get it. So that's been really cool and invigorating. for me to learn something new. I'm very interested for you to just share. I know listeners might not know a lot about audio and video, but can you tell us some of the things you've learned, what you look for in video cameras,

what you look for in audio, because this is an area where, for my own benefit, I'm interested to hear your thoughts because trying to choose different microphones, different audio equipment is always these different opinions, and it's hard to figure out which one is the best one to go with. It all depends. It depends on what your intended use case is. Like if you're wanting to kind of up your Zoom game and look better on Zoom, well, then maybe a multi-purpose, like a Sony mirrorless camera would be your best bet. And with some microphone with close proximity to your mouth. And, yeah, the amount of things that I've ordered on Amazon or locally, locally, Long and McQuay, is an amazing music store.

I don't know if you've bought anything from them. I haven't, but it's only because they haven't been carrying the road products that I've been ordering because the road has been on back order, but I've reached out to them numerous times, and they've offered at least guidance on what I should be doing and recommendations. Yeah, and so they have a number of really skilled employees that know a lot. And so I've learned a lot there, and then just kind of built from.

But why what you can afford or what you can save to get? Because you're going to, if you try to go cheap, you'll find, okay, what's the next level? What's the next level? What's the next level? I think on an audio mixer, I'm on my fifth one in the studio. And I'm thinking, okay, hopefully this is the last, because I overshot this time. and it's, you know, it's 32 inputs and they're almost all full. Yeah.

Wow. And for video, what is that like to try and navigate? Because I find video is a lot easier than audio. And so I'm interested to hear your thoughts on learning the two and what the differences have been. Yeah. To me, video is you see a good picture or you don't. Audio is just so many different, especially as you start on. layering different sources and routings and what people are hearing and it becomes more and more complex.

And so, especially with live video production, you need cameras with no latency. So what you're seeing is what you're getting. And so all of our studios run on SDI, which is not HDMI. HMI is a consumer level video source, whereas SDI looks more like what you have at home with cable with the BNC connectors that lock in. And that is true real time, so you're not having to delay audio to sync with your video and so forth. And so that's a whole different ball of wax. And my favorite company in all of that is called Blackmagic design. And so we have a black magic design constellation switcher, which is actually an 8K switcher, capable of 8K, we've never used that.

What are you using right now? Is it 4K or? For live streaming, 1080, just regular HD. That's typical. You're not, other than quadrupling the amount of data, 4K, most people aren't going to see that on their phone or their computer screen over YouTube or things like that. But having that infrastructure in place gives us the ability. to record at higher resolution. Yeah, because it's 4K is something that's tempted me. The only problem is the investment of obviously upgrading everything. From what you're doing, you don't need it.

Okay. Yeah. Your file management, like 4K is basically four quadrants, right? So your four times file sizes, four times bandwidth, four times everything. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. And where are you taking it now?

Because you said you're going to be doing more renovations on this. So I recently, as in very recently, haven't even really publicized that other than right now. So one thing we were, originally I called it the Co-Work Chiloac Studio. And that made sense as an offshoot of Co-Werc Chilowak, but for higher-end virtual production, it was like Covert Chilowac Studio, what does that mean? And so recently rebranded it Studio C. Studio C works with co-work and currency and everything I do seems to have a C in it

and so that in itself I think is better positioned we just need to start marketing that I do think that we can get back to doing more in studio with I've kind of taken the whole back and keep pushing into the space so with the expansion we'll be able to do a central control room

and get all of the stuff in the back of the studio into a separate room. That'll help. One thing, as I've added equipment, there's more fans and equipment noise, and I want to make it back to completely silent in the studio for better audio recording. And that'll allow us to get back to where we can have up to 70 people in the studio for live events. Wow. Is there anything like this in Chilliwack that's like a hypothetical competitor? No. No. There are others. like Chill TV has a studio in Rider Lake there's no space for audience as far as I know

it's all virtual production and they do a good job and then on of course the much larger scale there's a cultural center but they don't really have any video capabilities and so yeah it fits a a neat little niche but it all came out of your own interest like we wouldn't have this

right without your willingness to do this and then where would the summit be held Where would these events be held? Yeah, and so Studio C is a little bit different than I said things need to make money before, make more money than it's been a bit more of on the passion side investing a fair amount, but we're starting to see returns from that. And so it's been a little bit more of the, if we build it, they will come model. Because it could be.

It was sort of a third leg of what I'm doing. Yeah, because you also have a podcasting space in there. And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about that because you did that in mind for others who want to consider starting a podcast. I think I missed the mark a little bit on that. It's a great podcast space and there's been many that have done it. It's not as busy as I thought it might be

because most people doing podcast, I realized, like yourself, if they're going to do it seriously, they'll get the gear themselves and do it from home or remotely. But yeah, no, it's completely set up. for both audio and video podcasting, and that's been fun. Yeah. You were interested in podcasts before most, before it really became mainstream,

and so I'm interested to know what your experience watching this growth has been. Yeah. I bought an iPod, I think, in 2004, and some of the first podcasts were introduced, I think, 2005. One that I was religiously listening to was, this week in tech called Twit and another one Mac break weekly from the very get-go and I've listened to those for you know 15 years yeah and then it was interesting it just sort of it came up and then it went down and then within the last three years it's really exploded and everybody's

got a podcast it seems I had a podcast in 2006 called credit union innovators where I interviewed people in in the industry that I was involved in and that opened a ton of doors for me as well yeah so yeah I've I've been listening and creating podcast media for a long long time what do you think about the industry in comparison to something like social media because I wrote a paper for law school on in my opinion I think social media is a real problem in our society because I think it is creating divisiveness. I think it's distancing people unnecessarily. It's creating like groups and that cannot get along.

And so I have real concerns about the platforms impact on our ability to think. Even when I'm trying to make posts or trying to schedule things, I notice myself getting into this. Well, how many clicks did it get? How many of this? And I can feel myself dropping into like a zombie like desire of wanting to see what's going on and it's addictive in that it's like a um like when you go to a casino and you you turn the thing and then you get a notification you're like well what is it what it could be

somebody like somebody famous reaching out and saying this is a great pot like who knows and so i need to click it and so i feel that and then in contrast i look at like podcasts and i get to really go long form and think critically for three hours straight and if people think i'm wrong on something they can go back through listen, break it down, and disagree with the points that I said. And so it's more, there's more responsibility on me to be a quality person where on Facebook, you can just hit share. And it can be the most controversial post ever. And you just hit share.

And then now it's out there. And it's as if you thought those things. And so I'm interested to see what your perspective on as a marketer, knowing the differences between the two mediums. Well, as you were researching me, you probably saw that I don't have. a huge social media output. I used to, like 10 years ago, I spent so much time on Twitter, well, probably 12 years ago. I got, my Twitter account was created in 2007, like shortly after the company was founded, right? And to me, it was this breakthrough. But back to the notion of everything seems to have unintended consequences. I think social media,

as it is today is an absolute dump dumpster fire i fear for the future i look at my kids i've got a 14 and 17 year old and it's hard to break their gaze from that piece of glass like it's they're not necessarily super involved in facebook and so forth but you know instagram and and the newest one talk yeah yeah but it it just seems like they all start with with such rose-colored glasses of wow this is and then then the marketers get involved and polluted and then the the activists and the trolls in the i think of what went on the last five years and it's all just fueled by social media yeah the thing that scares me though is that it's having real impacts in our community and so for that paper i i don't know if you heard but there were women going missing in

like Maple Ridge there were women going missing and on Facebook it became a conspiracy that they were all linked and then it became a real movement that women were like we my partner and I knew people who are getting knives getting ready to be abducted yeah and this is where the virtual becomes real and people start carrying around weapons and that's where I really get concerned about where our society's going is because it's not just like we heard the great hack and we heard these big stories of major companies having major roles. But there can be consequences in the Fraser Valley where everybody's kind of taken over by this mind virus that all people are out to get you and you need to carry a knife. And I'm going to teach you like I saw videos of like self-defense training.

And it's like this is not the way we should be communicating about these issues. And if your immediate thought when you see somebody's gone missing is how do I defend myself, you're not thinking about the person who is abducted. you're being very selfish in your analysis of what's going on and I'm not against preparing yourself but it shouldn't be reactive to Facebook posts it should be I want to protect myself and I'd like to take some self-defense training it shouldn't be based on a trend on Facebook yeah and there there isn't an easy solution right it's the box is open and we know things are bad we know hopefully we know that it changes a real issue. We just went through a heat wave and the province is on fire. But we as humans don't necessarily seem to want to change.

And so there was a Netflix documentary, the social dilemma. Like it's just, it's just Willy Wonka, people manipulating. And the creators of it, like I said, went in with rose-colored glasses and with capitalism in mind that we can make money and so forth. And then it just starts to just burn. And so I find myself have definitely retracted from that and do spend more time with quality long form content. And that's how I spend my time.

And I'll see things like Chiloac Beware going by and just ultimately I just have to close Facebook and I'm barely ever there. I wish there was a way of us knowing who's addicted to the platforms and who's not, because I think it's really helpful for people to look to people like yourself who are stepping back from it and seeing the problems because I do think you're a role model, but we don't know who's backing away from it and what the reasons are. So if somebody, I saw Martha Dow, who is a previous guest, she doesn't have Facebook,

but we didn't talk about that. And so people can't follow her lead if we don't talk about, What's your relationship with social media? How do you use it as a tool? The other part I wanted to ask you about because you are involved in marketing is what is it like to be able to choose your person? Like for the podcast, often I have to boost the posts because Facebook pages don't even allow me to reach all of the people who like my page when I make a post. It reaches if I just post it and leave it, it reaches 20, 30, 40 people, even though I have 800 followers. And so I go, okay, I guess I have to boost it in order to reach people.

And then it gives me options of like who the person is down to what they like, what they don't like, where they've been, where they've traveled, what they like to eat, what they don't like to eat. And it's just like, oh, I can just choose my person like it's a rat. Like it's like I just get to pick out whatever kind of person I want to choose and then tell them what I want to tell them or communicate whatever I want to say to them. Well, and our product that we create, it's a money thing, is content, quality content, financial education. but credit unions that that use it on social need to boost and so forth. And I can rationalize that because I think it's useful, really important information. And but to me, like I have, I guess it's a podcast. We have It's a Money Thing backstage where I interview a lot of our clients and their usage

and recently had on Michael Rathgeny's from Buy Star Credit Union in Florida on. And it blew my mind that they have a, a school-based branch program in about 25 different schools in Florida where they actually have like a credit union branch there and then they teach financial literacy and he let me know that they've affected 70,000 students in person with our content and I was so much more jazzed about that than random blasting on social media right like And it seems like I even have an unwillingness to, like when I realized the evilness that some of these companies, aka Facebook, have done in the manipulation and so forth, my reaction should have been delete my account. But I can't delete my account. It's the connections and I want to be able to connect with family and friends and so forth. And even though I don't actively participate much, I just didn't heed.

hit delete yeah like Instagram I got on within two months of it starting right and was very active at the beginning I thought wow this is really cool never with the intent of how can you manipulate it as a marketer but just it really showcases photos and I love the format and the filters and so forth and then sure enough it gets acquired by Facebook and and then even the founders Kevin sister who had a real, like, ethical, well, he's left, right? Because he just couldn't take what was happening with his baby. It's a cycle.

And I think from a parenting standpoint, from a society standpoint, it's super, super hard. Yeah. I'm very concerned because I feel like there are a lot of really well-intentioned people who still, it doesn't matter the education. And I think that that's where, it's important is that for many people, regardless of their education level, are still addicted to these platforms, being misinformed by information. And even with what's gone on with Facebook trying to manage at scale COVID information, they've done a terrible job of that

as well. And trying to, I agree that we want to stop some of the nonsense conspiracy theories, but they've started to even catch reasonable doctors who have actually invented like the mRNA vaccine, his video got taken down as misinformation. He was the guy who helped create the vaccines that we're all using. Like, it's crazy to see what's going on with these organizations. And I really hope that podcasting is a way out for people because it allows the truck, the people we didn't give respect to, I think, in the past, like truck drivers, I have immense respect for, regardless of whether or not they listen to podcasts. But they're actually one of the primary consumers of podcasts. Yeah. Because of

of their long form travel and because it's something they can tune into and consume and there's tons and tons and tons of content for them to consume. And so for certain communities and for certain people, I think podcasting is a real way out. And I'm interested to know some of your favorite podcasts and what it is that pulled you in about them. Initially, it was more of the interview style, Roundtable, this weekend tag Mac Break Weekly. More recently, I find myself really attracted to highly produced audio. So one that started that really caught my eye with startup that documented the founding of Gimlet Media

and some of the shows that they produce Reply All is one of my favorites. It's a really in-depth, highly produced show about the underbelly of the internet and all of the unintended consequences. If you haven't listened to that, it's amazing. Another one, This American Life, probably the best production in storytelling of any podcast.

It consistently ranks as one of the... I like more investigative stuff, like 99 Invisible, which explores the 99% of everything in the world that you just don't know about, but the way it kind of works. Right. And then I also spend a lot of time with audiobooks. Yeah.

What are some of your favorite audiobooks? Let's see. What's on my list? So I've had an audible account for about 10 years. And I do like non-fiction audiobooks. John Grisham, I like listening to his stuff. Yeah. I'm not sure why.

Um... Catch and kill was super interesting. That was by Rowan and Farrell. And it was a deep investigation into Me Too movement and ultimately taking down Harvey Weinstein. Right. Super good. Yeah. Permanent record.

by Edward Snowden. That one, I've kept up with Edward Snowden. Can you share anything about your thoughts on what's gone on? I saw Edward Snowden's first interview post-self-exile in Russia at South by Southwest, which is a big interactive festival that takes place annually in Austin, Texas. And he, of course, was on screen, but in an audience of like 5,000 people. but there's another example of people's collective short-term memory

like he does an absolute expose unraveling what sort of insight the government has on our every move and we go yeah well I still want to look at my phone and I don't want to take any personal measures to protect that and the whole like Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, well, what are you trying to hide?

Like, no, it's not about that. Civil liberties. Like, I think, I don't think Edward Snowden is a traitor. I think he's a hero. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. And I've been really interested in those little points because there was an FBI investigation

that I was actually looking into where they act, or yes, there was a group of like rogue people who ended up breaking into the FBI. but what they ended up doing, it was like Citizen United or some sort of citizen part and they broke into the FBI just to expose the fact

that the FBI were not focused on real crimes, they were focused on low-level offenses and they were avoiding high-level gangs that were operating across the U.S. They were avoiding all of the big fish to focus on the small fish and they were listening to outside influences and being manipulated on how they did things

and learning that and then realizing most people have no idea. And most people, if I said that, they would have suspicions about the people who went and broke into the FBI. Like, why would you do something like that? Why don't you just trust them? And it's amazing to me that this type of stuff goes on. Do you have any thoughts on Bill C-10 and what's just gone on because it was just, I think, vetoed or voted down? And that was in regards to freedom of speech. But it also has to do with social media. Yeah. I have to admit I'm not as educated I should be on that, but it's such a fine line of the power that companies play and the

information that they have and the telcos and the large, like I am an absolute Apple zealot. I've been for many, many years and love it, and I do like that they, of all of the big corporations seem to have people's personal protection, privacy, and they haven't made it a business model. On the other hand, I use all the Google services. I think their Google workplace, which is Gmail and all of their tools bundled up that companies can use, I use that for so many different things we do, and it's amazing. Yeah. But it freaks me. out that we needed for a second, like a guest bedroom in our house, a mattress. And so I'm talking with my wife about should we get a Casper or an NB or a purple. And my, if I do pop into Facebook

now, it's just filled with ads for these companies. Yeah. Like, yeah, I look at Apple. And then they say, we're not listening. And I'm like, okay. Prove it. Like, it's obvious. Yeah. Yeah. And you definitely look at the fact that there's no option to turn any of this off or to make sure that you have like a ghost mode where your equipment isn't recording you, there's no option for that. Alexa doesn't come with like a turn off, like don't allow you to hear me type of thing. And then when Siri goes off randomly, it's very, oh, you've been listening, you've been waiting for me to say that this whole time.

Yeah. So I'm also interested to learn more because I think some of our listeners are likely entrepreneurs, likely business owners. And so I'm interested to see how you see a business. What are you thinking about? What are those levels of customer acquisition costs of marketing? What are some of the insights that you can offer when you're looking at your co-work space or with currency marketing that you bring to the table

or that are always steps that you take to make sure that the marketing is going to be successful? I come back more to product development, making sure that you have a really good product market fit and that there are early adopters that you're not having to have acquisition costs for. That you're building things that are compelling and there's a word of mouth capability, which is ironic coming from a marketer. But if you're having to market the heck out of something that's not being passed along because it's just a great thing. And so that really comes down to spending time at the front end,

developing what that is, who your ideal customer is. how that message will be shared amongst them, building community, providing them with information that is useful and not just slamming them with sales. And so things like a company doing their own podcast or short form helpful videos make a lot of sense to me. And in building out that way, I think of what are local examples that stand out. I think, to Amber Price and the bookman, she has such social media presence and positivity around her. And it just boys her company behind her, right? It just makes that something. And so there's a local example of someone who's not afraid to put themselves out there and take a stance and stand up for things and promote and be passionate about not only.

her business but downtown Chilliwack and and inequitable activity that's going on against certain groups and so that's someone locally that I would model myself after. Yeah. And is there any other local businesses that jump out at you that have really caught your attention or that have pulled at you and you've been like, oh, this is really interesting or unique because you're always going to be bringing that marketing lens to things and kind of seeing what businesses are doing and seeing it from that, how would I do it perspective?

I think old Yale has done a great job of, it's ironic to me that you have Moulson's, this massive thing, but then this microbrewery that's, that locally outshines them in a sense, right? I think they've done a great job of cultivating local. I think a lot of the new businesses that have moved into downtown are doing a great job. Fieldhouse, I think does a fantastic job, especially what they did in Abbotsford, by building a community around their brand, and then now bringing that to Chilliwack. I think Hugo's Mexican, I don't think they necessarily do a lot of outward marketing or

advertising, but I think has a great reputation and has built a bit of a community around what they do. Right. Can you tell us a little bit about the businesses that operate out of the co-workspace that have caught your attention because you mentioned one that was like with Matthew Hawkins about how it does all of the marketing or all of the acquisition for chefs for like New York businesses. Yeah. Yeah. That they were in the they kind of took over the pot of the hot desk area outside of where your office is at the top of the stairs. They've since gone fully remote at home. But yeah,

That was super interesting. They were doing recruiting for many Manhattan-based top restaurants from desks in Chilliwack, which is pretty crazy. I think Chanel and Alpine Lawyers, or Alpine Legal Services, sorry, has done a great job, and I know you've been helping with that, and I think of up their social media game as well. he stands out as someone that's, you know, relatively fresh startup, but seems to be building a business pretty quickly. Yes, very quickly and puts in insane hours.

And I cannot believe how I come in at like 8 a.m. and then I'm there until 5. And then he's working at like 7 a.m. and he's working until 9, 10 o'clock at night. Yeah. And that's that's the startup grind, right? It's just putting in the hours and with an end goal or some sort of sanity in mind. Yes, and I think that you're probably another example of that because I do understand the self-care movement that's going on, but I think that it's important that if you're doing what's meaningful, if you're doing what you're passionate about, yeah, sometimes you don't want to be working until 9 o'clock or night or working on a podcast on the side of your bed before you go to sleep. But there's a part of that that's like, this should be done, I can do this, and it's worthwhile if I do it. And I think that that's a huge role that you're playing in the community because you have created a space for entrepreneurs and there's more coming, but you were the first.

And we have Studio Su, you were the first. And I think that these are all great examples of how your entrepreneurial energy, your willingness to revamp, helps our community do better because how many great ideas could we be missing out on just because someone couldn't afford the space to get to work. And so I'm interested to know a little bit more about any other businesses within the co-work that you've gotten to see and go like, wow, this might have been a lot more difficult, how they not had this space? Yeah, Nick Adams, he has a company called Very Good Creative Company, which is a general design web development firm. And Nick is a really smart young entrepreneur. and in conversation with him he was really intrigued by how did I specialize and do what I'm doing and and he launched something recently called Dieselmatic which is specific marketing and design services targeted towards diesel engine repair shops and it's blown up for him

Yeah. So he shifted from, you know, a local general kind of practice to now a side brand that caters to a very, very specific, weird little niche, and it's exploding for him. And so Matthew Hawkins, you mentioned him. I think what Matt's done with the Round Chilliwack is really smart and has helped him with his videography and photography work that he does. Yeah. That's one comment you made during the Matthew Hawkins one that really jumped out at me. You were talking about niches and how you want to... I guess we're in Canada. It's a niche. I get all my processes and processes all mixed up now with the amount of time that I've spent in the U.S. Right.

But you were talking about how you want to try and find a niche or a niche and make sure that you do really well in that one specific area. But that does bring up the other point. I'm interested to know what it's been like to have so much business down in the United States and to work and live in Chilliwack. And what has it been like to travel to those different states? And what experiences have you had being able to travel so many different places? Yeah. So that comes back to creating something that you know is compelling.

And so we created this young and free program and it really worked in Alberta. and started getting notoriety. And I realized that, oh, wow, this young adult membership problem was not just an issue for one credit union. It's an industry-wide issue. And so was kind of catapulted into doing something way out of my comfort zone. I was asked to speak over the years at more than 100 big conferences on this program case study type. talks, largest one being in front of 2,500 people in the audience in Las Vegas. And so that really opened up a ton of doors for me, being asked to speak on stage

for a product that I'm selling and then having people come up after and how do we get that? And it just took the marketing completely out of it and just went straight line to the potential audience. And so that was interesting trying to navigate what that looks like. It required me to work with a larger accounting firm to figure out how I can properly do business in the U.S. and have worked with KPMG locally with that. And then they have a U.S. tax division. So I have to file every year an IRS tax return. And it's called a zero-based tax return basically saying that the work is being done in Canada and exported.

which so much of that you just you're thrown into it and you can't figure out or you don't figure out without help of outside experts and navigating all of that and then just even the ability to to speak in these areas you need to get a temporary at the time NAFTA TN visa to be able to be paid to go and navigate that at the border and yeah a lot that you just kind of figure out. Wow, that is a lot that you don't even consider when you talk about your role. Yeah, sidebar on that. I was kind of cruising along doing these talks, and I was at YVR for one, and the agent asked, what are you doing? I'm speaking at a conference. Previous to that, I said, I'm going to a conference, which was fine. Off you go. mean you're speaking at a conference? Yes, I'm the keynote speaker at this conference. Oh, really? You're being paid for that. Oh, yes, I am. Okay, you need to go through those doors. And basically, got a very quick lesson on that you can't do that and didn't make that flight and was sent back. And I had to

work with a lawyer. I found a travel immigration lawyer based in Bellingham. And I remember, I remember to this day his letterhead at the bottom, creating transparent borders, Greg Bose, and had to create a package that essentially said that I was an expert in what I was and that I was being sponsored by an entity every time that I went to speak. And it was a bit of a rigmar role every time I had to do that. Wow. Yeah. That is a very unique circumstance that you would never think of when somebody just mentions I've got a speech going on down in the United States. Yeah.

You can't do that without a proper visa. Wow. Okay. And what was it like visiting these communities and getting to see different areas? Because in my view, Chilliwack and BC and Canada are very unique from the United States. But I would say, like many areas are very similar, especially those close to us, Seattle and so forth. But if you go to Jackson, Mississippi or Norlands, it's very different. And one thing that really struck me was how we live in such a multi-race society here.

And it seems very tolerant. But what I found, especially in the deep south, it was crazy just the palpable racism you felt. Yeah. That's not good. No. Other areas, like I've spent time in New York and Washington, D.C., and it's amazing. Like, some of my first going to Washington, D.C., and just sort of walking around and going to the Smithsonian, you realize, okay, this is why Americans are so patriotic. It's unbelievable what they've built, right? Yeah, and you talked about the American dream. What was it like kind of seeing that or being able to go to restaurants?

and being able to see different business styles and different approaches. Yeah, I think people are people. And especially those that we worked with in these communities with our young and free program, we got deeply embedded in communities. So one of them, we went and set up our program in Knoxville, Tennessee. And it was myself and Sandy who worked for me at the time. We arrived on a Wednesday. we were planning to go out on a Friday

or fly back home on a Friday and said, you need to come on on Saturday. And they said, well, what's going on Saturday? What's the Vols game? And I'm like, who are the Vols? We're volunteers for the University of Tennessee. And I said, okay, we can change our flight to Sunday morning.

And yeah, that'd be great. You really need to experience this if you're going to get to know Knoxville. And Knoxville, it's a city of 350,000 people. And their stadium, Neelan Stadium, holds 120,000 people. So like one-third their population? D.C. Place holds 55,000. Wow.

So think of the size of this stadium. And I'm not a big football guy, but I do recognize it like, Peyton. What's his first name? Manning? You know, yeah, Peyton Manning. He was, you know, one of their star quarterbacks and he's, you know, got a statue and name at the top. And I said, well, what time is the game start? Oh, you should be there at 11.

You know, what time is the game start? It starts at 7. And so we go, and you need to be wearing orange. If you're not wearing orange, you can't be there. And so we went to the volunteers sport shop at the university and got our, ball's shirt on and and so you've heard of tailgating but until you've been like it was insane just again that the amount of pride and outward celebration we just don't do that in Canada like I was so impressed with that and it was an in-state game against men in-state game

against Knoxville and Memphis so even more like rivalry yeah And get in, it's a dry stadium, but you could see everybody had a little flask and they were drinking. And the excitement, I had never been in anything like it. And they trounce the Memphis team. Like it was 50 to 20 or something. And every time they would score a touchdown, fireworks, and they had a horse that would run the entire length. of the stadium and they had this 90-year-old guy. Their theme song is Rocky Top USA.

And he would come out, good old Rocky Top! It was a spectacle. It was a spectacle. That I'll never forget. Just how... And then we realized, yeah, okay, we needed to stay for Saturday. Yeah. Because you got so much community in culture.

And then we realized, okay, this is going to be... This is going to be, this campus is going to be key for our Young and Free Tennessee program and how do we partner with them? How do we get on campus with our spokester and all of that, right? Yeah, that's brilliant. And those are the types of experiences that you get when you do travel. And specifically not as a tourist in a way, right? Like we were there with people that were showing us how their little air.

of the world works. That's what I think is really missing from a lot of travel because Rebecca and I went to Hawaii doing what you're supposed to do in Hawaii and doing the touristy things. Yeah, so you went to Waikiki, you went up the little mountain there and you took the picture you were supposed to take. Exactly. And did the swimming with the fish and all of those official things. And then we got back and I was like, this wasn't it for me.

This wasn't what I imagined being on a great vacation. And then I learned more about the, I'm going to forget the name of it, the, oh, what is it called? It's on the Big Island and the Keck Observatory, I believe it's called. And I was like, that's what I want to do. If I go to Hawaii, that's what I want to see. I want to see all of space. I want to be able to have that opportunity and to be able to really understand some of our solar system and how it relates and how we're connected. and those things that you don't realize.

And so I think that that's what people often miss out on when they travel because they're looking at Instagram, they're looking at Facebook. What did these people do? What am I supposed to do? I was speaking at a conference in New York. And I have had a buddy that I had met through my industry who lived in Brooklyn. So I stayed at his place. And many of those things, you would just fly in, you'd go to the conference center,

you get on a plane and you go home and you wouldn't get it. But he said, well, let me take you out. And so we went out to dinner in Little Italy in an off-the-beaten-path Italian place, and I swear we were next to like Tony Soprano and Mobsters, which was so interesting to kind of like listen to these conversations. And then we hop in a cab because I had to get up the next morning. He said, one more stop.

And I said, well, no, I really have to get to bed. No, we're going. And he gives this direction to the cabby, and we go down some pretty sketchy area into a, like a back alley. And he's, trust me, and he knocks on the door, and the little thing comes out, and he says like a passcode. And we go in down two flights, and it was, we were transported into a 1920s speakeasy. local bar with like flappers

and an old timey blues singer and it was the most amazing thing that you would you would never find it's not going to be on on the bus tour or anything it's like

I just so cool right out of a movie yeah but you only get that if you're with a local and you get that to a certain degree I think Airbnb has done a good job of reproducing that

and I've done a lot of Airbnb stays. What has that been like? Because Airbnb is fairly new and fairly disruptive in its own right. Yeah, for sure. And honestly, I think there's a startup that the founders have still kept their way. Yeah. Even though their, you know, pre-IPO valuation is like at $100 billion, Brian Chesky, the founder, hearing interviews with him,

he seems to be just a really decent person and is created. But they've had, you know, like if you were to pitch the idea, we're going to take random people and let them sleep in our second bedroom and that this is going to somehow be safe and legal is a pretty crazy business idea. But met some really interesting homeowners, right? And again, they'll give you the scoop on where to go or what to do. Right. Yeah.

An experience I had in Cambridge, which is just outside of Boston, it was at Harvard for a, I was an attendee at a workshop. But that one, hotels there were like 400 a night and stuff. And so I went on Airbnb and found something way more reasonable. and it was literally a second bedroom of a young couple's place and they tell you where to eat and what to do. But that one, do you remember, it was a movie about four or five years ago about the Catholic Church, and specifically around Boston? Okay.

I've forgotten the name of it. There was one on Netflix, My Keeper, or something like that. I'll think of it, but Mark Ruffalo was the star of it, and it was all about some of the things Catholic Church did, and specifically around altar boys and so forth. Well, I had an afternoon after my conference where I just wandered around and ended up at a theater and thought, okay, I'll watch a movie. And I would occasionally do that just if I'm on my own and introvert so far. And saw this was going to be on at 6 o'clock. I'll take that one. And shoot, I wish I knew the name of it.

It ended up winning the Oscar that year. But I had not heard of it. It had just come out. And I only watched it because it was the only movie on at 6. And it was the strangest sensation because I sat down and everybody entering the theater was elderly. And the movie starts, and I realized, okay, this is super heavy topic, super well done. Spotlight, it was called. Spotlight was a long-form, investigated journalism section of the Boston newspaper.

And they did an expose on the Catholic Church. And this is a way off the beaten path story, but I'll go to the end. watching this and it's super emotional it's documenting what went on and it became very apparent to me that all of these people in the audience were completely personally affected by what was being documented and by the end everyone around me was in complete tears like and then they rolled at the end of that movie the credits of all of the young people that were affected by this and it was again it was I don't know if I would have ever experienced that from it was very random found a movie theater

but these folks at the Airbnb said well it's down there down there and it's a neat little not your big AMC or Cineplex style theater and in that experience right wow that those are the important moments that I want to pull out of this podcast because those are the moments where there is that deep impact of something that you didn't expect, you didn't plan for, and you learn a lot, and you even learn more about your fellow human being. Because one of the questions I want to ask you is, why do you care about community? Like, what pulls at you? Because it's something that's almost taken for granted that we care, that I think Amber Price, yourself, Trevor McDonald, we all care about community. But who, like, you're, you've got

the successful business, currency marketing. It's doing great in the States. Why worry about the community? Well, what I learned during that period, and that was really took off from 2007 to 2014, is we really excelled. But during that time, I had pulled out of any local activity. Prior to that, I was involved in the Chamber of Commerce and was the president, and all of our business was quasi-local, at least regional, and it made sense to be involved and visible.

And then I just sort of shrunk away and did our thing. and realized that I was missing some of that connection that I had had earlier on and actively tried to get back into that. When I was asked to be on the SEPCO board, that was huge to have that kind of impact. And that organization really isn't that well-known. It kind of does its thing behind the scenes. It's a quasi-private public corporation that is what the city of Chilliwack is basically set up an external entity that takes care of economic development. Most cities will have an economic development

arm within the city. I'll get back to answering your question. Anyway, so SEPCO is very involved. Do you think of what's happened at the Chilawak Education Park? Yes. That is SEPCO. You think of what many of the things, the downtown redevelopment, the land acquisition that went on all of that. That's for years, SEPCO working in the background. And then finally, coming up and really seeing that rejuvenization and so forth. And to me, like, you can have outward success, but if you're not connected locally, then you're kind of, you could be anywhere. And I love Chilliwack. I think it's been neat. I moved here when I was 16, so that's 35 years ago, do the math.

And I've seen it go from, you know, probably 60,000 people to know, like 100,000. but still have that tight-knit smallness, but big enough. I love that it's, I call it the island of Chilliwack, in that it's really a self-contained entity. It's far enough away from Vancouver. If you think of Abbottford-Langley-Surie, it kind of all bleeds together, and so much of that,

the residents that live there, get up in the morning and drive somewhere else to work and come back, and I think we don't have as much of that in Chilowac. I think when I'm doing stuff abroad, I do say I'm from Chiloac, BC, and they'll say, where is that? Well, it's a little over an hour east of Vancouver. It would be much easier for me to say I'm from Vancouver, right? But Chololac, that's interesting. Yeah.

Sidebar story on that. I was speaking at a conference in Wisconsin, and there's this awkward little chit-chat you have with the person who's getting. mic'd up and so forth and who's going to do your introduction. And she was trying to get a little tic-tac tidbit from me that she could impart to the audience before me coming out to speak. And she said, oh, you're from Canada. That must be cold. I said, well, in fact, no, I'm from outside of Vancouver and it's, we barely get any snow. What? It's more like Seattle with the rain. I can't believe it. And I said, it's way warmer than Wisconsin in the winter where you are, because you guys get like six feet of snow.

And so she goes out to the podium and said, I like to introduce Tim McAlpine, he's from currency marketing. And you'll never know what, you'll never believe what I just learned. Canada is warmer than the United States. That was her takeaway. But, no, it's been neat to be an ambassador for this funny named city when I've been out of it and then to reconnect with it. I think it's important to be a part of the community.

I absolutely agree, and I ask it partly tongue-in-cheek because I obviously understand the value of community, but it's always interesting to get other people's perspectives because I think it's so valuable to understand the why, because it drives what you're doing. And for so many people, they struggle with community. Like, there are a lot of professors at the University of the Fraser Valley that are not well connected to anything in their community. and I think that this is one of the issues I have with social media is it is taking the place of actually building real, genuine relationships in your community because you can say now you're a part of a Chilliwack group.

And what does that mean in comparison to actually knowing the real leaders in our community and understanding what they've brought and who worked so hard to, like, I think of the Royal Hotel and all the different people who are involved in making sure that stayed in our community because it was at a point where it was very similar to the paramount where it could have gone different ways and it took a lot of work and investment by great local people to keep that landmark in our community and those are the types of stories your willingness to um rebecca and i went on a walk and we were talking we watched shark tank like a lot because it's so great to see people who started from nothing who were like

i was pounding on doors trying to sell my product now we're worth like a million dollars and we've got this much and say, oh, it's like, wow, you really turned that around. And they're like, I had a second mortgage on my house or a third, like, I was in dire straits. And then it took off. And now I'm in a way better position. And it's like, that's so, it's like soul-fulfilling to see people succeed and to do it at what they care about. And then we were like, oh, this is like missing from Chilliwack. And as I started the podcast and learned more about what you're doing, I looked at your podcast space.

And I was like, this is the stuff we need. this is the stuff that creates the space for people to succeed. And I had Sue Nod on and she talked about the Chilliwak Cultural Center and the work that went into creating a real space for creative minds and for artists and for creators and trying to create that. And then I came across your story and being able to work so hard to create a space for entrepreneurs where it's accessible. You don't have to rent out an office space.

And when you're starting out as an entrepreneur, it's so much about front end costs. And if you call a realtor and you're like, I need a space. going to try and make sure that they're making money and make sure that the people they know are making money that your endeavor is really not the priority of anyone. And so you've worked so hard to create the space that makes such an impact for people like Chanel who were trying to keep their overhead cost low and approach the law differently because that's one thing I've really gotten to see is he is so hyper focused on making sure that the client experience is what it needs to be. And he's like, I don't care about any, if it doesn't improve the client's experience, I don't care. And so it's like, well, there's so many businesses that are about promoting your own name, like your name across the letterhead and that you're a big deal and seeing him being willing to throw all of that away and say, the co-work space allows me to keep my overhead cost of a commercial space low. And then I can pass that savings onto the client. It's like, well, all of this is working synergistically in order to improve the community.

And so now people are able to get better access to legal services because you created a co-work space that's all working together. Yeah, and you mentioned a few things in there that one thing that bothers me, what's frustrating is, and part of the reason I don't spend a lot of time on Facebook anymore, is just if you do get into these groups, I tend to just go so negative. Yeah. Right? And you'll see so many people calling out the city.

on why didn't they do this and why didn't do that. And you mentioned the cultural center. Well, Dorothy Kastrava was, she's since passed away. She single-handedly built that place with the help of many, many others. But it was her being on city council for decades of saying, we need to do this and we need to allocate. And yes, we need world-class sports, but we need world-class cultural experiences here in Chilliac.

And she took it on to herself to make that happen. saw it built before passing away and that was like amazing but people wouldn't know that yeah and those but those are the stories that get missed so easily because they're not looking for the spotlight and matthew and you talked a little bit about that is that you're an introvert you're not really seeking the spotlight and that's why for me it was so important like from the very beginning i knew i was going to have you on since literally looking at a podcast equipment you've been on my list but there are certain people i want to have on at a certain point because i want the platform to be what I need it to be in order to reach.

I'm saving certain people until later on because I want it to be able to reach people so they're actually aware of the impact and you're a person who's done all of these amazing things and I would just hate for that story not to be able to be told because you've been involved in the Chilliwack Chamber of Commerce, you've been involved in Sepco, you've been involved from the ground and then now you're here, now your name's starting to get more out but you've done so much in the background that could be missed by people because so many people say I'm a part of the chamber, but I'm interested to know what you did on that, because you actually helped with their marketing, and you actually helped them actually get their brand and

name out there, so it became more well-known. And so what was that like? But those are the types of things that I think of for this. Well, and everything is, the idea of overnight success is, it doesn't exist. I agree. Every overnight success, even an artist with a hot tune. They spent 10 years in clubs, right? My claim to fame with the Chilliwack Chamber of Commerce was I was the first president to go two years. Prior to that, it was always a year, but my vice chair at the time had a personal matter, and I was kind of forced into doing it for two years, and it ended up being really good. And since then, their presidents have had. I believe a two or more year term.

It just makes more sense. Then you spend the first six months trying to figure out what you're doing and the next six months trying to implement it and then you're gone, right? But one of the things during that time is we instituted their chamber connections, which they still do to this day. And yeah, it took more of a marketing focus to it. I was recruited by Stan from

from Legacy Pacific. Totally blanking. Stan Rogers, my goodness. It was an absolute pillar of this community. And so he tapped me on the shoulder and said, would I like to be on the board? And I said, okay, at the time I think I was 30-ish or something. And ended up being the youngest president.

Jason Lummel will refute that because he then became the youngest president of the chamber. But that, again, was just, and what was interesting is Brenda Dean, who had been the executive director for 15 years at the time, also decided to retire or move on during my tenure. So it was my job to lead recruiting who would be the next executive director, which is a whole other ball of wax. And we ended up as a board hiring Sue. Sue Atrell at the time, Sue not now. Well, again, she did such a great job with that and then went on to become a city councillor, right? And Jason got involved, and so it's all stepping stones and it's all interconnected.

My wife Jan used to be a keyboard player in a quasi band with Trevor McDonald way back in the day. And she's a counselor at a. middle school is actually moving this year to a role at the school board but anyways it's all interconnected and everybody's overnight story is decades in the making yeah well i think that that's you also you did pat my eagle because i was looking and going okay i think i'm going to be the 26th or 27th person on this podcast he's he's really getting down to the the barrel here no the very opposite i'm just getting started like um one person that i'll be reaching out too short who had an impact on my childhood.

I'd have no idea if I'll be able to get him on is someone like Brent Butt. Because for me, Corner Gas actually played a, I didn't have like strong parents, I didn't have that. And so I just relied on a lot of TV to kind of help me grow up. And his show was one of the ones I watched

every night before I went to bed from 7 p.m. until I was sleeping would have YouTube videos of Corner Gas on all throughout my night. And so those are the types of people. You don't, like, I'm sure he didn't make that show going, I'm sure this is going to help a 13-year-old, but it actually did, and you would never expect it. Matt Hawkins interviewed Brett. Yeah. He used to, Matt used to do this crazy

Canuck fan little show, and he actually got him on. So if you want an intro, maybe Matt can help you with that. That's awesome. But I am just getting started because I think that there are a lot of people who play that important role throughout BC that don't get that recognition, that are doing amazing things and not seeking the credit. And I think that you're an example of someone who's willing to let co-work run and not even be the face of it. You're not trying to get recognition as hello everyone. I'm the person who's like supporting local entrepreneurship and and look at me over here. You're just doing it quietly and you're like, this is something I had a vision for and I brought it to life and I was willing to put in this time for it. And here we are today.

But I am a little bit more interested in SEPCO because you're right. Not a lot of people know about it. But even worse, a lot of people have suspicions about it if you've ever seen an article on people's interpretation of what it is. So Sepko started in 98, so it's 23 years old. And it was during John Lesser's tenure as our mayor. And it was modeled after, I think it was Halifax partnership where they took it outside of the actual city. And there's a lot of things that it can do that you can't do from within a city. So for one, it's land acquisition. The city can't buy and sell property, for example, but this entity can. And so what happened at the Chilliwack or the the whole former CFB lands where half of it went to Garrison and the other half became the Canada Education Park.

That was all facilitated by SEPCO because it was outside of the city to negotiate a lot of that. And bringing like, like people don't know that what goes on there even. Like all of the Border Patrol for Western Canada are, all their training is done at a training facility. on that property. And so what the ripple effect of that is there's a, there's essentially a private hotel on there that that is full all year long employing many, many, many people. And then RCMP, their Western Canada training is done in Chilliwack. And we have a shooting range for training that all officers need to come, I think, once or once every two years to be recertified. And, and that's from Saskatchewan over.

And so all of that was done because of this entity doing, we built the, in partnership with the RCMP, the driving, or sorry, not the driving range, but the shooting range. And things like that are super interesting. And by design, kind of under the radar. Yeah. Well, and I think that that's the important part

is that so many major, important, relevant decisions are made and most people just take it for granted. Like, I even think of just the maintenance of, like, all the light bulbs in Chilawak. How much must that cost and how nobody knows the number, unless you're part of the city, road work? Like, we're like, oh, more road work. And it's like, isn't it nice that we have people who work on the roads and maintain them for us? Yeah, and so it has a community volunteer board by being one of them. But I think there's about 15 people.

Amber Price is on that board representing small business, large business. You've got Stan Vanderwall, who owns Rainbow Greenhouses. They have more than 600 people on payroll at Rainbow Greenhouses. Bruce from Canex, again, a huge employer, Langley Concrete. So a number of bigger businesses that volunteer their time to be on that board, but then a number of small Brian Minter is on the board as well. And just a lot of interesting, very smart business people that have, help guide the decisions of the city.

Yeah. Can you tell us more about Brian Minter? Because I think perhaps we talked about him, but we didn't really give for people who may not know who he is. So Brian is an internationally recognized quartercultural expert. You would know him from Minter Country Garden. Prior to that, he had Minter Gardens, which is a world-class show gardens here in Bridal Falls, just not far from where we are right now. And he has a show on or has had show on CBC for many many years radio he's just any tireless advocate for tourism in Chiloac he's the chair of Tourism Chiloac and if you go to Minter Country Gardens it's quite likely that he'll help load your trunk with what you just bought there right yeah I just saw

him probably a couple of months ago just helping customers and it was just like wow you've built this empire of a place and you're just helping the customers yeah we were doing sepco meetings by zoom and brian shows up uh in one of the little panels and he said what's going on brian and he had a full collar on he had broken his neck he was helping someone load like an evergreen tree into the back of a pickup truck and fell off the back but as soon as he got out of the hospital he was back at work and back doing all of his stuff wow he's just he's an energizer bunny of of Chiloac. Yeah.

And again, he's created a really big and profitable business, but that's never the end goal. It was to relay what he knows and his love of gardening. Yeah. Yeah, I think that what you've done by bringing him on that podcast and being able to have those conversations are so valuable because you really get to see a different perspective on the world because you really go into all the different types of plants and the relationship we have with those things and understanding how everything works together and so being able to get those different perspectives is beneficial regardless of whether or not you plan on gardening or not he's just an interesting person to relay that type of information yeah yeah go ahead it was he was a chair of bcAA he was the uh i think it's the

provost the head of ufv another volunteer position for many years like he's just uh unbelievable man. What is it like for you to have grown up with a lot of these people and to see people like Amber as peers and to have been able to see all of this development in Chilliwack through the 2008 recession through different periods of time to be able to watch Chilliwack continue to grow and see these individuals because I wouldn't say that Chilawak has a lot of very famous people but we do have a few that are very popular at least within our own circle and they've been building their name for a really long time. So what has that been like for you to kind of watch?

And then I think you're on the same path as them. Yeah, I'd just see them as people. And hardworking, good intentions. It's nice to know them and have them know me. Like, yeah, I don't. Yeah. Yeah, fair enough. I'm also interested a little bit about your family background.

How did you and your wife meet? We've been married 19 years. 22 will be our 20th anniversary. We met in about 2000. She was a friend of an art director that worked for me, and I said, Liz, who's that? And so that was her one matchmake. She was our maid of honor at our wedding and retired after that.

I'm out of the matchmaking business. Jan is an educator. She worked in the Chilawak School District now for, boy, I think, 30 years. And her background is music. She has a music degree from UBC and was a band teacher at A.D. Rundle for many, many years. And then while pregnant with our son, she got her master's in counseling and shifted to a counseling role at A.D. Rundle. and then ultimately at Mount Slessy for the last eight years, I think. And, yeah, she works super hard at her job.

And I get real insights through her story and just how things have evolved. You mentioned social media and stuff, the impact on anxiety and just the negative peer is super maddening, right? Yeah. Just what the impacts of that. And so, yeah, we've been married close to two decades. How was that first interaction, that first meeting? I asked her out for a date, and we went to a movie, and it was good. And then, of course, I'm interacting with Liz in the background.

I'm saying, what did you say? Oh, I didn't hear anything. Give her some space. You probably don't want to. Ultimately, we dated for a while. and about two years later got married. Wow, how was the proposal? What was that like?

Proposed, I think, on Christmas. I shouldn't say, I think. It was on Christmas. And she said yes. And we went to Hawaii for our honeymoon. So I know the kind of Honolulu Waikiki experience, but we did our best to kind of get out and tour the island. Yeah.

It was good. Was that planned? Was it for Christmas specifically? Like, do that's what you had in mind? or did just our eyes? No, I bought the ring and did that. With family or just? No, just us.

That's awesome. And so you have two kids. Can you tell us a little bit about what that's been like? Sure. Aiden is 17, just graduated from GWG, GW Graham, and a great kid. He was involved with his passion for the longest time was martial arts. He was the first member of Sun Heng Doe, which became Excel. and he got his second-degree black belt a couple years ago.

And he's since got a girlfriend and kind of put that on the side for now. But, no, he's a really good student. And it was unfortunate that graduating during COVID is pretty tough. Not a lot of celebration, but it's got a great group of friends. And they actually do some really cool films. And he's quite involved in media as well. and his passion is computers. So he wants to do computer science.

My daughter, Elise, was born in 2007. She's 14 now and just is moving from Mount Slessy to G.W. Graham next year for grade 9. And very artistic and super good student and, yeah, really proud of them. That is awesome. And that's got to be so rewarding because they're kind of going in both directions that you went in. And so you get to, I'm sure, learn more about what's coming up and what's going on in Chilawak from a young person's perspective. I really appreciate you being willing to take the time and share everything that you've

been through because as I've said, I really think you open the door for entrepreneurship in Chilawak and that was something that as I said, Rebecca and I were worried about when we were first starting to start the podcast and talk about those things and being able to see co-work Chilawak and then I know there's another co-work space coming up and there's more interactive spaces, but you were the first to give proof of concept. Those other operations might not have occurred if they didn't get to see your success and the impact that you have on so many other businesses that are just starting out the need to reduce their overhead cost, but also creating the space for credit unions and being able to learn more because that is

one thing that I'm really passionate about trying to bring to the indigenous communities is financial literacy is financial education because for me reconciliation needs to look a lot more like practical solutions to real problems and for me urban places like sheacton and squayala they are already tied into the veins of chilewak so they get access to all of the great ideas and entrepreneurs of chilewack but when you have communities out in the middle of nowhere they're not going to be connecting with the lawyers the accountants they're not going to be in the co-work space And so those are the communities I really think are the next up, in my view, that need outreach and that need to be connected so that they understand and that they're taught about the basics of TFSs, RRSPs, how these function, what is wealth simple, what is quest trade? Are these useful tools? Are these not useful tools? And being able to talk about business. So the last area that I kind of want to land on is if you're starting out of business, what is your advice for those people? What are the things that you think are just the basics of business that you consider,

if you were going to start a new venture tomorrow, what are the things that you would go through on your checklist of things it would need to meet, regardless of, obviously specifications are important, but just your general rubric. I would say started as something on the side, don't quit your day job, but take it seriously, put effort into it. And as soon as you see that it's useful to break free, break free. and then put all of your passion into it. Go through the proper steps, set it up properly.

I would say I waited too long to incorporate my business. It was probably until the seventh year that I did that. Work with someone like Chanel and get that set up. Get an accountant that you trust and do what you can to learn about bookkeeping or find somebody that can help you with that. And always remember that you need more income than you don't over-invent. best. If you're going to do a video production company, don't spend a ton of money on cameras and gear, rent, get what you need, borrow some lights, and show a proof of concept. And then just

start building on that. As much as you can, work off of referrals. Remind your customers that, I know you guys do a good job of that. Can you leave a Google review and so forth? Being highly ranked on search engines is important and then it's good to build your network I'm pretty much a lone wolf myself but over the years I've thought

would it be good to have a partner and so if there's something that you and someone who has complementary skills could start that might be a way to go yeah that's actually what I considered at the beginning was having a co-host, I ended up going against that because I saw the struggle of having a good dialogue with someone and then someone else feeling left out or that they're not getting to speak enough or wanting to having a really good thought and having to bite on it

and not be able to say anything. Yeah, I think there's a lot of pros for partnerships, but there's also potentially cons in that there's always going to be who's doing the more work, who's doing what work. don't if you're going to partner don't get someone with exactly the same skills if you're the expert in something we'll concentrate on that and get somebody who's more better at the books and in that side of things if you're the marketer or something like that absolutely and making sure that it's not just because you guys are best friends because i see a lot of people make that decision of we've been friends for so long and so

this is a quick way to end that friendship exactly and so the only other part i'm interested in is what are some local businesses that you utilize regularly like the town butcher or different stores that you shop at so other people can know what you're interested in and perhaps give that place a try um restaurants wise i really like the locals like shandahar hut and chilies and hugos and um some chain restaurants i do like pita pit and noodle box and things like that but But otherwise, I tend to go to home hardware versus Home Depot. The more that I know the local owner, the better. That's awesome.

And I think that that is something that really gives you that connection, is being able to know this is the person I'm supporting. This is the person who's worked hard. I've gotten to see them rise this business up and put in this time to try and start their business or to try and make that impact in Chilwaukee. Home hardware has also gone through different iterations and different, locations and really come about because I remember when they were like a three two floor place on Wellington right and yes yes when you went up and down and then there was like the basement

and then it became a stickies candy shop and I'm not exactly sure what it is now but everything goes through iterations and I'm very interested to have on some of those people that you mentioned the person who's can you remind me who's Dan Swatsky yes he's absolutely a person I also Robbie Snooks is another person that would be great to have on yeah he's in the background everywhere. Yeah. Well, I really appreciate you being willing to take the time because I think that you are a gateway for a lot of people to start to take the risk on themselves and start their business or to take their idea and start to see how could I make this a business. And I think that your willingness to constantly adapt, restart is a huge example for people because as I said,

a lot of people gets committed to this is what I had in my mind and this is what it needs to be. and then it's not as successful or it doesn't grow as big as it could because they've latched on to that idea. And I think that and your willingness to address your introvert nature and say, this is who I am and there's no issue with being an introvert. It's just about willing to push that enough so that it doesn't impede your ability to succeed at other endeavors. And I think that those are two huge ways where you're a giant role model for our community and you do it without looking for the praise, Trevor McDonald and myself. talked about how you're just that person who's willing to get it done and you're not looking for the glory or the fame. And I think that that's so important because it leads into things like TEDx Chilawak. It leads into other people being able to create their voice and being able to

raise awareness of that. Can we just talk really quickly about that? Sure. I think that that's something that I almost missed. Yes. So TEDx Chiloac. I spoke at the first one. I was invited to speak at the first one, and then got involved as a director on the second one, then took over as a license holder going forward. And so TED, which is an international organization that does the big TED conference and all the TED talks we've seen, TEDx are locally organized versions of that. And so they are in more than 4,000 communities around the world.

And we have the license for TEDx Chilliwack. And it has been an in-person, one day event where ultimately we film and Robbie does the filming of those videos in the past those live on the TED website and so they've been a great I think total our videos for TEDx Chiloac over the four years we've done it have accumulated 600,000 views which is way more than the audience that came to see them but yeah we we were to scheduled to go with April 15th of 2020. Well, that was postponed in the Cultural Center.

That was going to be our big move from G.W. Graham to the Cultural Center. And it obviously got postponed. And everything was, oh, we'll just postpone for three months. This will blow over. Well, of course, our September 1 got pushed off. And ultimately, we're now scheduled to regroup in 2022 at an event. I think it's April 10th and it'll be at the cultural center. And it's a one day event featuring about 12 speakers with all sorts of different incredible stories to share. The TED talk format is a maximum of 18 minutes and completely off script and really compelling talks. Yeah. And let's talk about some of the people you've had on because you've had on Kim Gamble, David Jimmy, you've been on, who are some other great

names. Go to TEDxchillowac.com and look at the archives. I'm totally blanking as we speak. But I thought David's talk was amazing. Yeah. And what's interesting about the format is that it's not death by PowerPoint.

Like these are really compelling talks about something that the person is an expert at and super passionate about. and it's a really compelling day. How do you go about choosing the guests? So we've done an open call for applicants, and then we did a series of applicant showcase nights. We previously did those at the Cottonwood Four Cinemas.

And this past year, leading up to the one that got canceled, we did one night at Covert Chilowack and selected six speakers through that, And then we curated the other six speakers, six people we wanted to speak. Right. And then they get that 18 minutes and everything set up. And we assign them with a coach. There are many, many rehearsals.

It is, there is no teleprompter, no script. You need to be completely committed and do it. There's a rehearsal the day before. And then it's in front of a live studio, a live theater audience. And then we film it, Multicam. And then those are posted. They go through TED, the organization, for review. and ultimately get posted and promoted.

Wow, and that wasn't here before. Like, you guys helped bring that about. What was that process like? It's an application process through TED. Anybody can start one in their community if it doesn't exist. And Ray, the fellow that originally founded it in 2016, he applied. And then I took over in 2000, as a co-director in 2017, and then ultimately as the lead, 2018, 19, and then 20 we had to postpone.

Yeah. What is it like to be the director of that? It's a lot of work. Yeah. You're putting together a pretty pro show. So it's putting a committee together. We've got about 12 people on that committee from the coaches to the marketing to just putting on the show itself. And it's, it's again just kind of rallying a bunch of people around a really good cause. Yeah. Well, I'm really grateful that you're able to do that because I think that that really does highlight local people. It gives Chilliwaka voice. And as you said, those views, the views that you get on those videos are tremendous for people's ability to reach a community because one of the hardest things as I've gotten to experience is really trying to get the word out to people because it's about pivoting and trying to find ways to make sure that that reaches people in a meaningful way and that is digestible. And I think Ted is a really good way of going about that because, almost everybody now knows what a TED talk is. For sure. If not, they're, they're aware of how they work and how communication functions.

And I think that that is... Yeah, and the community-based TEDx is way more accessible. Like the TED conference that goes on every year, and it's been in Vancouver for the last few years as headquarters, but it's $10,000 to attend. Wow. We are, I think, $39. Oh, my gosh. So it's much more accessible to people as well if they're local and they're just trying to get the word out on. something. And I think that it's a very fair system in that the great voices, great local

voices get raised because you see the David Jimmy's on there. You see the Kim Gemmels who've worked hard to bring a message to people and that those are the stories that get chosen. So thank you so much, again, for being willing to take the time and share your story because I think that it is one that is not often known. And I think that it is something where your willingness to adapt, as I've said, really sets a good example for. people to be willing to take on a side hustle, take on a side project and let that grow on its own organically rather than saying I'm going to quit my job and I'm going to get a $50,000 loan and we're going to get started and I'm going to be a huge success because that is the

mindset that a lot of people who go on Shark Tank take and that's the mindset a lot of people have is that success is all about how much money you have in the bank and if you just pour that money onto something it's just going to explode and I think that that's the wrong mindset to have your approach of being willing to go through constant iterations and constantly develop new ideas and change the style and change the name and adapt things so they work better together and seeing what's not working so well because in your conversation with Matt, you talked about how this was very expensive and it was a one-off

and that's not great for long-term business if I want to be sustainable. And I think too often people who are starting out, they start to feel guilty about charging people for their work even though that's how you pay your bills. And it's so important that people... Creative people are renowned for undercharging for their value. So the more confidence you can build and the more willingness you're able to walk away and so forth. And I want to just say what you've built here is amazing.

Putting yourself out there and it's not easy. And the way that you have cultivated your pre-interview document and just made me feel easy and just showed up and do this, I'm happy it's almost over because the heat is starting to come down on it. pretty good. Luckily, we did not do this three or four days ago when it was 42, 43 degrees, but shout out to Eddie Gardner, who I actually did record that one with. Oh, is that right? It was very hot. Holy cow. Yeah, we recorded in 42 degree weather and my video camera ended up overheating and turning off 20 minutes before the end of the podcast. So I really appreciate you being

able to withstand the heat and share your story because I think that it was one that I was very excited to record. It definitely lived up to expectations. Awesome. Your story is just phenomenal. So thank you, Tim. Thank you.