Automated transcription services provided by: Dan: Hey, Jason. Jason: Hey. What’s the name of the company? Dan: The name of the company is Member Desk. Jason: Member Desk? You know, my daughter, she’s only 2 and Member is how she says remember so it makes me think about just how you remember, but that’s not most people. But Member Desk sounds like you run some kind of organization and the front desk is sort of the metaphor for a lot of stuff. There’s a sign in sheet for volunteer stuff. There’s scheduling. There’s I don’t know, memberships. There’s just stuff and most organizations are bad at it and don’t have somebody devoted to it. So Member Desk is a virtual and yet it can also be physical, literally sitting in the front of the co- working space inexpensive way to do that for pretty much any organization. Dan: That’s pretty decently close, actually. Jason: Right. So what is it really? Dan: Member Desk is a hosted membership site software. Let’s people sell premium digital content online without dealing with any of the technicalstuff.Jason: What is premium digital content mean? Dan: Videos, music. Jason: Why is that premium? Dan: Because you’re not giving it away for free. You want people to payfor it.Jason: Premium means for money. Dan: For money. Yes. Jason: So selling music. Dan: Music, videos. Jason: Because you said premium digital media, so I didn’t get selling music out of that. Dan: Yes. That’s one of the possibilities. Jason: Selling music. Selling videos. Selling stuff that can be delivered electronically but you want to make money. Aren’t there a bunch of companies who deliver stuff electronically and let you make money on of it? Dan: There’s a difference. Basically Member Desk creates a membership site for you where people will pay you, say, on a monthly basis. $10 a month, $50 a month, whatever, and then they get the user name and password to access their membership site; Then they get access to all the content that you allow them access to based on how long they’ve been a member. Jason: OK. So this is a Paywall-type thing. This is like what Andrew Warner does with Mixergy. Where, if you sign up to be a member and pay monthly, then you get access to the whole archives and all this other stuff. You’re in once you pay. Dan: Yes. Exactly. Jason: OK. And so this is a way for just everybody to implement that. Dan: Yes. Jason: That sounds good. Dan: It could work for anybody, but what we’re doing right now is we’re focusing on the music industry; because we’re actually running the premium fan site for the 70′ band Chicago right now, and they’re super happy with it so we decided to focus on musicians. Because musicians have a ton of content that can be sold digitally. And that kind of leads into my question because music and all content really is a pretty tough industry. So my question is how do you get to the people that you need to talk to in these industries? How do you get to the decision makers when they have so many people guarding the door? Jason: They do. They do, and when you get into music or Hollywood it’s the worst. Like at least in IBM you try to get into IBM but you know what titles to go for and find them in LinkedIn and they have admins, but you can get around those admins and all that. Hollywood and music, you can’t call Madonna. That’s not ever going to happen. Those kinds of industries are very much who do you know and that kind of stuff, unfortunately. So actually I have been advising a company in Austin, who is also in the music industry; and they actually started with an idea not dissimilar from what you described, but they are not doing it now. They now do extra- merchandise so fan selling other fans merchandise that they made but this time with IP rights and everybody makes money, which is pretty cool. But they had the exact same problem. That they had to sell the band on it. One thing I learned from there, is that the manager is the first step. If the band members want to do it, that’s fine but A, They are harder to find anyway. And B,The manager often is the one controlling how the money works.So, if the manager’s on board, you’re probably going to start and if not, you’re don’t regardless of the band. So the manager, that’s one thing. And the good thing about managers is that they manage multiple bands, and all the managers know each other too. So the good news is, if you can get your wedge in there, one manager levers you into bunch of bands, which is already nice and that therefore more with your effort; and it’s easier once you’re intrenched that you could be this person doing this. But if it were easy to break in with a product for the music industry, which is sort of like, “I got a game. How do I get people to know about it?” They’re like, It’s a game. It’s hard. It’s expensive.There isn’t an easy, cheap way to make everybody know about a game because everybody is making a game. So it’s not going to be a patent answer. But I wonder if one answer could be that there are these other technology companies like this one I’m talking about. It’s called Bitvibe. They do have some traction. I wonder if another technology company in which you don’t compete, so that then doing one thing means they wouldn’t do the other and yet you’re both going after the same people. I wonder if it would be useful to team up with one of them. Not to merge companies or anything like that, but simply to say “We’re all trying to get in here. We don’t compete. Maybe we should try to share some of this as we go because we’re all trying to do this.” It could work although people are usually pretty tight about that. The way Bitvibe broke in is that the co-founder is the drummer for several really big bands that you’ve heard of from the 80′s and right now he’s in Gregg Rollie Band. Gregg Rollie is the other guy in Carlos Santana. So pretty top, not A+ list but enough. But the answer is the co-founder’s been in the industry for 30 years and he’s somebody and so they can get meetings. So, like in most things, is who you know and networking and finding out the next person in line, the next person inline.Patrick: You know, I think most start ups are not like that. In other words, if you look at the most start ups on Earth, their success is not depending on who they know. But in music and film, I’m not sure I know people who just break into music and don’t know anybody and have no ends. That’s a tough one. Hamid, do you have any insight in this? Hamid: It’s kind of interesting. So Member Desk is actually an AC disruptors company, that incubator that we have going here. So Leon and I have met numerous times, about marketing strategy and the music one is that developed after Chicago became a customer. But until they had become a customer I think the thought was that the site might be used more for people who have very popular blogs or they have content that they write about about sports or medicine or whatever topic that they become an experts on. Then over time they start building a library of that content that they then sell as a monthly subscription of some kind. Or maybe they have forums that they have premium access for the members. So that was sort of the direction that we thought about going in and it’s just hard to figure out the marketing strategy around that. Dan: Exactly. One of the things is that it’s software that can be used by pretty much anybody so how do you narrow it down? How do you focus? Jason: Yes. I think you do have to focus. You probably don’t have enough time and money and energy to go after multiple markets at the same time so having Chicago, that’s fantastic. And again, if you’re successful with them, if they show success, which they have big enough of a fan base, you should be able to. Dan: They’re very happy so far. Jason: They may be happy but if you show some sort of objective success like look, Chicago had, I’m just making this up, 200,000 people in their email list, they had 77,000 people in their fan club, which by the way was people literally mailing out their things and getting stuff. And they’ve successfully moved most of those people to this, and now making monthly money and more money than ever before because of this, and now they’re all digital and now so easy to do that, and you have that complete story, I don’t know why their manager wouldn’t push you on to the other bands they manage. It’s more money for everybody.It’s like why would this not happen? So I think you use this, again, as a wedge and go from there if you really focus on getting this out of the park. Not just they’re happy but the next person has to be bowled over, whatever that means. Alternately, if you wanted to go after this other stuff, I think you can certainly can. I think that makes sense, that market, and it’s even pretty obvious how to find those people. They sort of, like there’s some standard places that everybody like that reads. Like a lot of people that read Copy Blogger are the kind of people that might do that, and Copy Blogger does guest posts and does other things that you could assume insinuate yourself in. There’s even conferences around conferences that you could go to where those kind of folks are. These people like the guy behind I will teach you to be rich, I forgot his name. Dan: Ramit. Jason: Ramit. He’s a conduit to it and first of all he’s a perfect customer for this. Although, we don’t need to go in deep in that. He might not be just because of his particular style but what he is is definitely the kind of guy that if he got behind this and explained this as a strategy, he might be able to put 1,000 in your lap. Dan: Interesting. Jason: So going after those kinds, the influencers of those people like Ramit. So in other words, it’s pretty clear how you would go after that thing that’s a growing market. There’s a lot of people who are experts or have a book that want to make money in other ways just like this. Bob Welsh is another one who is sort of plugged in that kind of world, and is helping other people through that kind of thing right now. I think there’s definitely places. The fact that Andrew Warner id doing this at the moment. He’s obviously got an implementation already. but he would have probably use this had it been available. Dan: I don’t know if you’ve heard. Lous C.K. just came out with the same exact model Jason: I did. The same thing, right. It was just $5 period but how much better would it be if it was $5 a month. You’d be under the gun to produce more content, I guess. But I don’t know. As fans, of Louis C.K. maybe you do it, because you’re fans. Dan: If you’re a big fan you would. Jason: What about Adam Corolla? I could totally see some kind of special with Adam Corolla. Or another example would be This Week in Start-ups. Where they have the producers thing. It’s the same thing. It’s an exclusive club, blah, blah, blah. Any podcast or maybe blogger, but podcast, for sure, like them, that’s over a certain number of listeners, and that’s not a million people, but it’s 1,000? Dan: Yeah. Jason: And you know how to find them because just go look at iTunes and go through the top lists and just go. So I think it’s pretty clear how you’d reach out and do that, but that’s a whole different thing than trying to make Chicago work. Dan: Yeah, exactly. Jason: I do think you have to decide, for now. That doesn’t mean you can’t decide “Nah, screw it. Let’s go after the other one”. Dan: Yeah. Jason: Right. You can do that any time you please and that’s OK, but I think you have to decide now. But of course, braking in at the very beginning is hardest in any industry, for any start-up, of course it’s a huge challenge, of course there’s no easy answers, but I’ll give you one other possible answer because you’re talking about breaking in. When you say break in it usually means at the top. Dan: Yeah. Jason: How do I get in front of Lady Gaga’s manager? Yeah, I don’t know. Right? So there is the other direction, and it’s harder but it’s sort of if you can do it then you’re in the driver’s seat and you can just do it which is to go the other direction. Go after the Lady Gaga fans somehowdirectly.Dan: Interesting. Jason: Make the unofficial Lady Gaga Fan Club which they pay for and when they come knocking on your door saying “There’s thousands of people. We’re getting emails all the time. They’re paying money. Who the hell are you?” you say “You’re right. I don’t want to own this. I want you to own this. I was just trying to get your attention. Now, let’s talk about you can actually promote this and make it from 1,000 people to 100,000 people and we can all make a bunch of money”. Dan: Interesting. Jason: See what I mean? Now, I don’t know that that’s easier because it’s a bunch of consumers, how do you reach them, I don’t know. They don’t read Hacker News, so I don’t know. That’s not necessarily a great idea, but it’s a brainstorm of you can go the other way to get their attention potentially. Dan: Great, I like that. It’s something to look into. It might not be easier, but something to look into. Jason: You know, it may be easy for a particular band or something. There’s some reason why you have an in with the fan groups of one of them, like there’s a local chapter guy and he thinks it’s the best thing ever. You’re like “Well then get your local chapter on” and he does and so in other words it still might be just a wedge to get in, but that guy’s easier to find. The chapter organizer of Lady Gaga Fan Club in Arizona, that person you can locate and you can talk to that person. So, you know, there’s not as powerful, but at least you can talk to them. Dan: That’s true. Patrick: Hey Jason, Patrick, sorry. Going in the other direction I thought you were going to say go after smaller bands that have more immediately to gain, so there’s bands who play for 1,000 people a night who might really need the money that this generated. What do you think about going after smaller bands instead of huge acts? Jason: For sure. It’s always easier to get at the smaller people. There’s probably some clips where the amount of money they could generate is actually not that interesting. Dan: Yeah. Jason: And they probably don’t have a very good, well, some of them might have a good connection with their fans and be able to move them to do it. But another thing I learned is that a lot of these big bands, they have a ton of fans but they really don’t know how to message them. Dan: Yeah, that’s true. Jason: You may have a million Twitter followers, they probably don’t. They may have a mailing list, it’s probably not even around the number of fans they actually have. If they’re really organized they have a fan club, and Chicago probably does because they’re so big and organized, but the smaller ones surely don’t. So maybe if you found the smaller bands who are also really good at communicating with their community. That might be a good sweet spot, because then they may be able to get 1,000 people to pay them $5 a month, and that’s pretty good. Dan: Yeah, for a band that’s great. Jason: It’s possible. I mean, it’s easy to talk to very little bands and just say I feel like the amount of revenue for you is very little. The amount of training and selling is very high. So I don’t see that, again, as a stepping stone, OK, maybe, but even so if you have little piddly bands that go around and don’t make a lot of money, I still don’t see how that leads you to the managers of the big bands and convincing them that they will make a lot of money. I don’t think one leads to the other, so I’m not sure that you’re making that much progress. Patrick: OK. Jason: That direction, but maybe medium. I’m not sure. This is still outside my, you know, I don’t know that much about the market of this, so I don’t really know how those behaviors go. Patrick: That’s cool. Dan: Great. Thanks for all those ideas. Jason: By the way, one last one is if you find a power manager that runs 40 people and they actually give you the time of day and think it’s pretty cool take them into the fold so that they personally want to do this. Give them a small percentage of the company, but they have to bring in, not for nothing, they have to contingent upon them bringing 10 bands, or a certain amount of revenue, I don’t know, something that you would then say “Oh man, is that worth it”. Dan: OK. Jason: Because then they’re personally motivated to do this for you, not even just for money. Now it’s pride and then telling everybody how they’re an investor in this hot tech start-up and all this garbage. That’s what you’re also giving them so that they want to go do this for you. Dan: That’s great. Jason: If that helps you mint the company it’s totally worth, I don’t know, 5% of the company. Dan: Yeah sure. Jason: If that lands you 10 big acts and gets the ball rolling and gives you legitimacy and blah, blah, blah and he can pick up the phone, my God, that’s clearly worth it. Dan: That’s great. Patrick: Awesome. Dan: Thanks, yeah. Patrick: Thanks Dan.(strum) Interviewee: Jason, how are you doing? My question is, what’s your opinion on co-founders? So, the company I’m in now is not a software company and I’m really interested in that space. I have degrees in computer science and networking but I haven’t kept up on the latest technologies. What’s your opinion on finding a co-founder? Like somebody who is more of a technical person, versus just learning the new technologies myself and implementing something. Jason: Well, I think the decision of having a co-founder or not is very personal. I don’t think there is answers, or industries, or things. I feel like some people probably are just too much of a control freak to really have a co-founder. Interviewee: Right. Jason: Then there are other people who are only comfortable with a co- founder. And of course there’s the usual pros and cons right? Like with more people who are not taking salary, you can literally do twice as much. And that’s really important for an early stage start-up to be able to move as fast as possible etc., etc. But you also have to agree on things and this and that. Also when you go through the down and ups with someone else, that’s just so much better than having to rough it on your own. It is rough to do it by yourself. But then again, especially looking ahead to what does it mean when you start taking salary, and how do you divide up the company and what if it goes sour, which it often, often does. In three years what happens? And if you sell the company can you sell it for enough that everyone still. So again, there are clearly pros and cons. I guess I don’t understand the context in which you are asking. You’re saying you haven’t kept up with the technology, so should you go find someone who has? That doesn’t seem like a good reason to do anything. Interviewee: Should I find somebody that is up on the latest technology, so then I don’t have to waste a year. Jason: Why? Who cares? Why do you have to make a company on the latest technology? Interviewee: Well, I’m talking web development. I haven’t really developed any web applications. It’s a web app that I want to do. Jason: So you’ve never done a web app and you want to make a web app company. Interviewee: Yeah. Jason: Then I would get someone else who’s done it. Or, decide that this is going to take a long time. Which is okay. Is it Okay if this takes a long time? Or is this a race? Interviewee: No, there’s no race. Jason: Oh, well then you can decide. Because you could get someone and then you go faster or you could say, “No, I want to learn this. There’s no time pressure so I’ll simply take a long time to build it and who cares.” Interviewee: Yeah, that makes sense. Hamid: The other thing to consider is, is it going to be a technology company? Or are you building a web app to service a non-tech field. And that’s sort of an interesting thing because if you’re building a web application that could sort of not be on the latest technologies and have the greatest whiz-bang UI interfaces, and the greatest user experience; but you are servicing this market that is way under-served. The one thing that you might be able to do is outsource the development costs of it. I don’t know what your investment potential is. Interviewee: Right. Hamid: But if you’re trying to build a technology company without having a technology co-founder, I think that would be a huge problem. Jason: I agree. Interviewee: Thanks.(strum) Gelie: Hi. Jason: Hi. Gelie: All right, so the name of my company is networkingphoenix.com. Jason: Yeah, and folks who have common interests and want to find each other in the interest groups that they can go to can find each other on this centralized location. Gelie: Very good. I’ll give you an A. So, basically what it is, is it’s a website, and we compile and promote all the different business networking events in town on the calendar. Jason: Right. Gelie: So the core of the site is the calendar, and the reason people come to the site is because of the calendar. Then we have different things built around it. So, when you land on the site and try to click on anything it will let you view the event once, but then it says “Hey, if you want to see more events now you’ve got to create a profile”. So, they go to create a profile, and it’s free. It’s like LinkedIn, right? Jason: Right? Gelie: So you create a free profile, you promote your business, whatever you want to promote, and now you’re in my database. So, we’re three years old. We’ve got about almost 20,000 members. Jason: Wow. Gelie: We are actually one of the most popular local websites here in Arizona. Jason: Yeah. Gelie: And four times a year we do these big networking events where we get about 1,500 to 2,000 people attending. Jason: Wow. Where do you do that? Gelie: Resorts here in Phoenix. Jason: Oh wow. That’s cool. Gelie: Glad you think it’s cool. Jason: How much do you charge them to attend one of these events? Gelie: Well, it’s free. Jason: No! Gelie: But no, it’s free for them to attend. Well, it’s not free for the sponsors and the people that exhibit at these events. Jason: Well yeah, but man, even if it was $5. Gelie: Right. Everybody says that. But that’s why nobody has events as big as ours because everybody gets greedy and wants to charge, right? Jason: Fair enough. Gelie: So this is where we’re different. Jason: But you make some money on the event? Hamid: I like how she at least answers that question. Gelie: Oh, I’m sorry. Hamid: She’s like bam! Jason: No, no. That’s good. Hamid: Exactly. She knows her business. It’s very good. Jason: I mean, you could still have premium members who decide they want to, just like LinkedIn, right? You pay, you get a little more. Gelie: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Right. So I was going to say the core of business… Jason: But you make money on these events, right? Because of the sponsors, but you make money on these events, right? Gelie: Correct. The core of the business though, the revenue model, so it’s free to join, but then there’s the optional paid membership. Jason: Right. Gelie: Right? So it’s $10 a month. You sign up, then the monthly and then we have an annual, but you can attend other organization’s events for free. So I negotiate the free tickets and I just become this middle person. Jason: Right. Gelie: So you sign up for free, and you get your passport and now you can attend different chamber mixers and all this other good stuff, different educational seminars. So in a nutshell- Jason: How many people do that? Gelie: Right now we have just over 1,000 and we’ve had the product out for about a year and a half. Jason: That’s a long time. Gelie: It is a long time, and so we’ve been watching the trend, right? So, when do they sign up? Why do they sign up? Why do they drop off? So, there’s definitely things we know we need to improve on but we haven’t been, I haven’t had the data, right? So I didn’t know. Now that I do know we’re kind of getting into that phase of “Okay, now we have to take this product and fill in all the different gaps”, right? So why are all these people falling off? Well the good thing is a lot of them actually tell us why they’re leaving. So we know we can improve. But, that’s not really, so my question to you is, So where I am in the business is we want to expand, right? So we want to take this to different cities and keeping that local feel. So we’ve got networkingphoenix, networkingsandiego, networkingwhatever, fill in the city. So we’re kind of trying to put systemizing everything; but what I’m struggling with is going into year three because everybody’s been doing their own thing, right? I’m actually very fortunate because I’ve had the same employees pretty much since day one.On one hand that’s good; on the other hand that’s bad, because I don’t really know what they do on a daily basis. So, we’re trying to systemize it so I know I have 10 minutes here, so actually, I’m not going to ask you that question, because I’m more interested in my other question, which is how do I build a board of advisers? Okay, so this is kind of a few part question I’m going to ask you and then you can give me your overall thought process. So I’m looking to build a board of advisers because I kind of need a sounding board or I feel like i could use a sounding board and then really why would somebody want to be on my board, right? Because I’ve met with a few VCs and Angels and I’m not really looking for money as of right now, but I always just kind of like to bounce ideas off of them and they’re like “Well, you know, if you’re talking to me, that means, and I’m a VC, that means I’m going to want to invest and blah, blah, blah” but then they say “But not everybody would want to invest”. So, Okay. How do I find these people? Jason: Well what do you want them to do? Gelie: I need a sounding board, right? Because I need to be able- Jason: Well then just find, you’re a network of, you know 20,000 people. I’m serious. So what you need is to find people like, they’re business-savvy, they’re interested in this for whatever reason, they also want you to succeed, they like you personally, and that’s it. Then they’ll be a good sounding board. Gelie: Okay. Right. But, I mean, not like how do I approach them, but, yes, how do I approach them, only because I’ve never been in the situation and I- Jason: You’re a networker. Gelie: Listen, I know, but I get it. I can approach a lot of people, but I’m not going to approach a lot of people. Hamid: I take cash if you’re… Jason: Yeah. Jason: I don’t see what the dillema is. You literally say… Woman: Why? Why would they want to be in my board? Okay, there’s this “why would they want to be in my board?” So maybe, you can give me some insight. Is it because they just want to put their name on something cool, or what? Hamid: The problem that you’re describing is one that a lot of founders have. Jason, maybe you can sort of elaborate on this. But I think it’s difficult to ask people, even if those people would be more than willing to do it for free or to spend their time making other people successful, because somebody helped them along the way. But it is difficult to ask, and that’s one of the things that, as an entrepreneur, you have to sort of get over the hurdle that you have to get over. But how do you get over sort of, how do I approach this person? Gelie: Right. Jason: To ask, and what are they going to think of me, you know? Gelie: Right. Yeah. Because there’s a million people that I’m sure will want to do it… Jason: Hold on. Hold on. Gelie: But I don’t want them on the board. Jason: Right. Jason: You don’t seem like you have a problem approaching people and talking to people… Gelie: I’m shy. Jason: Or saying whatever you think. Okay. So that’s not the problem. Gelie: You’re right. Jason: You’re afraid that that they don’t… Why would they volunteer their time? What’s in it for them? Is that what you’re worried about? Gelie: Yes. Yes. Yes. Jason: Well, Okay. Number one. Who cares? As long as they want to do it, it’s Okay. Gelie: Okay. Jason: Number two. People do it because it is fun for people who are doers and are intelligent and like thinking about problems to hang out with other people who are like that and to see those things happen. That is just fun. That’s life. Gelie: Right. Jason: It is fun and life. Imagine how many emails I get asking to pick my brain about this with that, right? And everyone, of course, the automatic answer is no because of the time, just time. But every once in a while, I say yes. And why do I say yes? Because that person just seems like they’d be interesting and they’re doing something cool, and they seem like they’re serious, which you obvious are because you got a growing concern and all that. You just want to. I’ll put it this way. All these organizations and stuff, where people are obviously at a net loss in time and money for pretty much any organization in town that you send people to, why are they doing that? Because they want to hang with people who are interested in that thing and talk about it. That’s why they’re doing it. Hamid: One of the things that I’ve done a few years back, a couple of, me and buddy, who happens to also have a software company, we were talking. We thought exactly the same thing. It would be great if we could have a sort of advisory board, and we ended up inviting five other people, that happened to be from all over the country, that also have software companies, to a joint meeting in Las Vegas that we were going to spend a day talking about our businesses. That meeting turned into, now, we’ve been doing it for five years. Every five, six months, we travel to a city of one of the companies. It might be Dallas, or Toronto in Canada, or Florida or Boston, where each of the companies are and we’d become each other’s sort of sounding boards and advisory boards for a day; and we’d take turns going around the table. So one way would potentially be a mutually beneficial thing, rather than just, simply, incoming advice, right? Rather than a board of advisers that’s just for you, what about a board of peers that you give them just as much advice as they give you? That sort of worked out really well for us. So that’s another thing to consider, another way to go. Jason: Yeah. I agree 100%. I know quite a few people who do that. Usually, it’s local just because it’s easier, right? You just find other local entrepreneurs that you can just meet with once a month. Jason: Well, that’s… Gelie: But, yeah… Hamid: It’s hard, often times, local. But even if it’s international, not international. But even if it’s national, our trips cost about $1000 per trip. And we do it every three, four, five months. So let’s say three times a year, I spend $1000 on a trip. So that’s $3000 a year on an amazing sort of meeting that I couldn’t have locally because those companies don’t exist locally. I can’t find seven other software companies about my size. Gelie: Right. Right. And that actually was my point, is that yeah, you’re right, there are a lot of people, but I don’t want to talk to them. Hamid: Right. Woman: Because it’s unsolicited advice and more than anything Jason: Look. I think what you should do is decide who are the people that would be perfect for the board… Gelie: Right. Which was… Jason: And then just go ask them to be on it, and then when they say yes, you can ask them, why then? And that would be a… Hamid: Why are you wanting to do this? Jason: This is really easy. I don’t know… Gelie: But seriously… It’s good for me get some feedback and insight on it just because, like I said, I don’t know, this is like a new arena and I typically don’t like to talk to people about my business and details. I mean, I have certain people I talk to about it, not bringing outsiders in. So, the few times I did venture into that world, it was kinda of ugly because maybe I met with some wrong VC’s or whatever. Jason: I don’t know. You’re just, I don’t know, justifying something? Just do it already. You said you want a board adviser, so go get one, and if you’re not comfortable with it, then don’t do it. I mean, just do it, and then you can ask them why. By they way, I know we’ve got to go, but you got to charge more than $10 per person, because right now you’re making $10 grand a month off of that and that’s not enough, especially if you want to spread out to other cities because there’s no… I mean, to what end? So you can hire one more person. I mean… Hamid: It’ll turn back on in just.. Jason: That doesn’t make any sense to me. Gelie: We tried. That’s actually really interesting feedback, and we tried doing that and it did not work as well as $10. We actually make more money charging out $10 because more people sign up and stay longer than… Jason: Okay. Well, that’s fine. But then, in some other way you need to be making more money, or else, I don’t know why your’e even going to a location. Gelie: That’s not the only revenue stream. That’s the core of it, but the thing is I have 20,000 people to sell to, and I haven’t even had a marketing program for it. It just runs itself. Jason: Well, maybe you should do that before you expand to other cities. Gelie: Absolutely. Jason: In other words, you haven’t figured out this model, yet, that’s really cutting off money. Gelie: Right. Oh, right. So we’re not expanding tomorrow, but in order to expand, so this is exactly why I’m looking to place people around me, so I can actually bounce things off other people because I haven’t had that this whole time, so. Hamid: Your first step is to systemize everything. And then… Gelie: Exactly. Right. Which is what I was starting with because we need to just get this system down. Jason: More money. Gelie: Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, like I said, there hasn’t even been a marketing program for this passport program. Jason: All right. Gelie: All right. I’m taking up to much time. Hamid: No, you’re… Gelie: Thank you. Jason: Thank you. Patrick: Thanks.
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