We broke a lot of stuff on a recent update
and then we released it, of course.
So are we live?
We are live, absolutely.
Cool, but yeah, the app's better than it's ever been.
So we're excited for our next chapter.
So when people download it, they have a good experience
and really see the value in networking on demand.
You know, instantly they're in the car calling someone
and they don't gotta just listen to music or a podcast now.
They can literally just call another human being
and connect and gain knowledge
and collaborate, there's so many people collaborating
right now through the platform
and it's just a matter of volume.
The more calls you make, the more opportunities
you know, will fall into your lap, right?
It's awesome, I love it.
I think it's a fantastic what you've built
and it gets people connected very, very fast and easy.
You know, especially for those who don't have
distribution pipelines in place,
you get them connected to people like,
and you're in the dark trying to figure out
how do I find people who appreciate me and what I do?
Like, it's a game changer. Absolutely.
The house is huge, so.
And entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship's lonely.
You know, 99% of business out there are small businesses
and most have one employee
and everyone goes out and does something
and they wanna talk to other like-minded individuals.
So Howell's a nice resource for them
because they can go in there and chat
and feel like they're part of a larger community
and really see a variety of different experts
to connect with.
So if they're a podcast host,
they could talk to other podcast hosts,
see what they're up to.
If they're a lawyer all by themselves,
they could speak to other lawyers,
but also marketing gurus, whoever it might be,
that could really help them get to the next level
in their business.
You guys are doing an awesome job
of creating community around it.
I've seen that.
That's how I got invited to it.
Big shout out to Connie Myers on the Kids for Kids.
Amazing woman.
I'm looking forward to seeing her skill and build that,
but she was all about you and Al and what was there.
So it was really cool to find this so early
in the process of development and be like,
whoa, I've seen a lot of stuff, Jason.
I've been an entrepreneur.
I've been a founder since I was 22,
but my first company was a Y Combinator.
We had Paul Bucay, he mentored Gmail,
Matt Cuss, the search director of Google.
So I was 21 when I joined as a first sales rep there.
So ever since then, I've been, that's 15 years now,
I've been looking at startups,
seeing them come across my path, seeing what's there.
And you got one of the wildest, coolest things
in 2020 for my opinion.
Thank you.
But it's hard, man.
It's three plus years in the making.
And I will say it was way harder than I ever imagined.
And we're not really off the ground yet.
We still have to get the second and third inning to survive
because the mobile app space is so competitive.
And I hope is that one day I'm quoted on this
and that's that entrepreneurship is not a process
of one step forward, one step backwards,
or three steps back, two steps, no, no, no.
Entrepreneurship is like rock climbing
and you are climbing and climbing.
You might fall two inches, two feet,
or 200 feet in the process.
And you're gonna eventually have those 200 foot falls
in entrepreneurship.
And when you hit, you've heard,
remember Joe Rogan way back in the day,
doing his Believe It or Not shows.
And which one was it?
One, it was a Fear Factor, Fear Factor show.
And there's people going on there who were skydivers
and people who fell in their parachutes and all that.
And almost every single one of them, when they were asked,
are you gonna do it again?
What was their answer?
I don't know the answer.
Honestly, they said, yeah, they almost,
I'm going back, yeah, that's my life.
That's my passion.
I'm going for it.
And so entrepreneurship is no different, my friends.
Those of you who are listening in,
it is not an easy process to climb these mountains.
So Jason, the way you've done it just blows me away,
considering it's the first time,
it's just absolutely outstanding.
So while I'm gonna quit doing the promo thing for you
for a minute, what are the resources,
three resources that you would recommend?
Well, let's do two.
OWL is number one, I can see that.
OWL is a resource that people can use
to expand their vision and grow with what they're up to
and grow their leadership.
What are two more resources?
I'm a podcast guy.
I've never been into reading books.
I know everyone will name their three favorite books
and talking about how much they've learned from the books.
I'm gonna go out and I need to see it for myself.
And when I listen to podcasts,
I just love the authenticity when people tell their journey,
their story and really open up, right?
Share the truths of what went on in their business.
And then I pick up little tips from each podcast guests.
And of course I have my own podcast
and one of the best resources is your own guests themselves
because they open up to you on the air,
but also off the air.
So resource just listen to some good podcasts out there.
There's so many of them
and really go after a niche one in your industry.
So if you're a financial advisor like myself,
like I know this one advisor that just talks
so much knowledge and I walk away like blown away
how this man has that much knowledge.
So go after a couple of niche ones.
And then of course go after ones that are not niche ones
that are more outside your business one
that could be about AI, right?
My buddy Mark Savant runs one on AI
and it's like everyone talks about AI
but it's like no one really is using as many things
as is really out there
because there's so many new technologies
and you don't know where to start.
But when you hear someone say,
these are the three ones I use for my actual business,
then you're like, okay, I wanna try those three,
not just chat GPT, right?
So I think too many people like think of AI is just that
and there are so many.
So those tend to be like my go-tos of course.
And then of course leaning on mentors, right?
Find some people in your community
that you could always call and just bounce ideas off.
And those tend to be people that have been on my podcast
that have ran businesses, have scaled businesses,
some of them have exited.
I don't have one in particular.
I have a bunch where sometimes I'm having a shitty day
and I could just call them and I just say,
hey, what are your thoughts about this?
And they're like, they're telling me what they went through
when they raised capital and what they went through
during their dark times.
And it's just good to be like, okay, this is all normal.
There's no one that had a smooth ride.
Even the ones you think had a smoother ride,
there's not sharing the whole story.
Right, exactly.
And well, you can air your dirty laundry all day long
if you want to.
At the same time, there's a context for meditating,
masterminding on those topics.
You mentioned podcasting and in the financial advisor space,
do you follow the CFA Institute and their podcast?
I do not.
I tend to follow the actual financial advisors themselves
who operate them.
I look at more like the operator.
Why do you say that?
Because if you get a chance to meet him,
Franklin Parker, he's based out of Dallas.
He actually was a client of ours.
And he was just tapped on to be the new podcast host
of the CFA Institute.
So it'll be fun to see him come out on that.
But he is an actual financial advisor who helps people.
So it'll be fun to see him take over that mic.
The other thing I wanted to mention,
the visionaries out there,
especially those who are maybe looking at starting something,
we are in desperate need as a globe
of somebody who will curate the podcast platforms out there,
very similar to Netflix.
And I saw a program a couple of years ago
somebody's developing where the new platform
is combining YouTube influencers
into a Netflix-like experience,
whereas curating the YouTube influencers out there,
there's so many opportunities
to get people the right knowledge at the right time.
And that's really what it's all about,
is a lifting the billion who need a lot of help.
So you're already working your tail off
to get that done in your perspective, so am I,
but maybe some influencer out there hears that says,
you know what, I wanna go and build that.
That'd be awesome.
It'd be a favorite of both of us.
So without further ado,
we're gonna cut to the break for just a minute.
We'll be right back.
We'll be diving into Jason's vision.
We're also gonna be talking about speed networking,
effective coaching, and precision prospecting.
And we'll see you on the other side.
All right, welcome in to Vision Pros Live.
With Jackson Calame, I'm your show host.
We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs
and guest leaders who are building
fantastic visions out there.
Hey, what's up everybody?
Welcome in to another show of Vision Pros Live.
I'm your show host, Jackson Calame,
founder and CEO of First Class Business.
And I am jacked right now.
I'm super excited because this is one
of those interview opportunities
where the technology platform has come out.
I'm gonna spoil it.
OWWL, OWL is on our show today.
And this technology has the opportunity to change lives
for people who are in that position
where you don't know who to prospect next.
You need more mentors.
You need to connect to the right people.
This platform, that sounds like LinkedIn.
That sounds like Facebook.
That's not, it's not.
Take a look and see what Jason has built.
We're gonna pick his brain and find out as well
about how he's built that, what his leadership style is.
We're gonna learn so much.
But while we're talking, feel free to check out
that platform while, and no, he's not a sponsor of the show.
He's a guest like anybody else,
but I've spent enough time playing around with that
and talking to people who've used it
and looking to use it more myself,
even though our distribution right now is massive.
Like I can hardly find time in my calendar to fit more in,
but that platform has superpowers
when it comes to networking.
So sponsors first though, resources that I rely on,
resources that are important to us
that I know will help you as well.
The law spot, the law spot with Melissa Gray.
Melissa Gray came onto our show.
I almost did not take her on as a show
because I don't like most lawyers.
Most lawyers are pretentious and condescending.
And it seems like they're not really on your side
even though they are.
So you just ignore that as entrepreneurs.
Well, I found that Melissa was a nurturer by nature
who also happens to be an awesome lawyer
and she simplifies the legal process for entrepreneurs.
I see too many entrepreneurs out there that are vulnerable
when it comes time for trademarks,
intellectual property battles, you name it.
I went through a $20,000 lawsuit with Restaurant Connect.
We won a lawsuit, trademark lawsuit,
but did we when we spent $20,000
because we didn't have our legal counsel picked out,
prepared in advance?
I think we could have gotten that done
for a whole lot less money
and we probably could have avoided it all together
had we just had counsel on hand.
So definitely consider her, check her out
while you're also looking at your other options
that are out there.
Then there's Recovery Unplugged with Andrew Sosin.
We don't work with Andrew Sosin directly.
I just love what he's building.
This is a program to help people overcome addictions
and addictions come in many forms.
They have a 24 seven hotline
and his connectedness to entrepreneurship,
his consistency too with going
to the Tony Robbins programs 22 years in a row.
And the fact that he has a 400 plus person team
and his leadership style just aligned so well
with first-class principles that I was like,
man, I really wanna raise more awareness for this
because I know a lot of us have associations in our life,
people in our life that are saying their life is fine.
It's fine, it's fine, it's not fine.
Not if they're diving into alcohol,
not if they're diving into Netflix,
not if they're not paying attention to the here and now
because they don't wanna feel the pain of life.
Well, I'm not as trained psychologist,
I can help with that, but their program can help with that.
And they incorporate music into this
in a way that's fantastic.
And I'm a big music guy, so enjoy that.
Use that for your benefit.
That helps one person.
Then it was worth it to me to have him
and his program on there.
Then there's the water project.
I got my water bottle with me.
Why?
Because I am so blessed and fortunate
to have water at all times.
I've never been thirsty.
The water project helps me remember
that there are millions of people out there
who don't even have access to this.
They have to go look for it.
These kids have to leave their schools.
These families have to leave their work
in order to provide the most basic necessity on earth.
And so if we have the privilege to rock the mic,
I'm gonna use it to hopefully inspire a few people
to either share this message about the water project
or give back to it.
The cool thing about them is when you donate,
let's say you donate $5 to it,
you actually get to see the outcome of the project
that you funded, much like a Kickstarter project,
but one that's actually going to make generational impacts
and possibly change lives of thousands
if not millions of people.
Their transparency is the main reason
why I talk about them.
Now, if you have another cause
that you'd rather see us support or talk about,
don't hesitate to drop that in the comments.
It's not a competition.
Life's abundant for some of us.
I'd like to see us change that and make life abundant
for the billion people out there
and we can do that better together
than we can apart.
Without further ado,
we're gonna dive right in with Jason on his vision.
Jason, welcome to Vision Pros Live.
I got confused on my show there for a second.
Welcome in.
I'm super honored to have you.
A little bit nervous because I just,
I mean, I love what you're doing.
I see where you're going with this.
So thanks for being here.
Of course.
I love where you're just talking about
the water project, of course.
I got my water every day.
I'm doing a contest with our community.
You gotta drink seven and a half of these every day,
gallon a day.
But I like how you tie it into your show, right?
Not just about business, business, business.
It's about giving back and making an impact to this world.
Yes, sir.
Absolutely, man.
Speaking of that,
what is your vision for those that you're serving?
So that's a great question, right?
And I kind of took a stumble there
because I was thinking back to also the water project.
One day I wanna be able to have people connect with people,
share knowledge and donate the money, right?
They don't need the money.
Most people chatting with people,
they're just doing it for the human connection element, right?
People on LinkedIn are connecting
and spending hours on there
because they wanna make money
from sending messages or posting.
No, they wanna build real relationships.
So when I look at OWL, it's really straightforward.
We've all gotten addicted to these things, cell phones.
We're on TikTok, we're on Instagram, we're on LinkedIn.
We go from one account to the next account
and we're looking at our notifications,
we're looking at our likes.
And then it's overwhelming looking at DMs.
And we've all kind of lost a little bit of,
when it comes to that human connection side, right?
I always thought there needed to be more of
what you and I are literally doing right now,
just having conversation, right?
And I guess the podcaster in me brought OWL out, right?
COVID hit and I said, now everyone's at home
and more people wanna become entrepreneurs.
Like we gotta just make it simpler to connect.
So OWL literally does that.
It gives you in the palm of your hands
and I'll show the audience the screen,
gives you this dashboard right here
of experts that are live.
You see they're flashing like Ureya McGarry.
She's an Emmy award winner.
She's charging $5 for a 10 minute call.
You could call her right now
and build a relationship with Ureya.
So there's no other platform that allows you
to instantly spend a few dollars
and turn it into something, right?
Ureya could be your next best friend, right?
Having to live in your local town
and now all of a sudden you're like OWL connected the two.
And we see that on LinkedIn and Instagram all the time.
But what OWL has done is just kept it simple.
One-on-one audio calls.
You don't have to worry about what you look like.
It's your intro call.
It's people you don't know.
So it's nice and comfortable that you're not on video
and just make a call.
If something good happens from the audio call,
you move it over to Zoom.
You move it over to in-person.
So OWL is the first platform
just enabling people to network quicker.
We're eliminating the friction.
You think about LinkedIn.
It's like we're posting, then it goes to DM
and the DM's going back and forth to do what?
To set up a meeting, to talk.
Well, we eliminated all that.
No more posting.
Just call the person at a certain price.
You find value in their expertise
and everything listed on their bio.
Well, then it's worth calling them for a few dollars.
Time is valuable.
So instead of wasting time trying to get through to them
and scheduling a week or two out,
it's like no more scheduling.
If I'm driving in the car at eight in the morning,
you are as well.
And we're both commuting.
I see you available.
I'm like, hey, this is a great individual to connect with.
It doesn't matter about the money element really.
It's just saying, hey, he's available, I'm available.
So it's created that.
It's also taken the awkwardness out, right?
The awkwardness of like, I don't know if I could call a friend.
Well, now you can.
They said, call me.
They set themselves available to calls
and that's what the flashing live represents.
That they put a timer that says,
call me for a certain time period.
So it's really that easy.
Call someone.
It's amazing how much you can accomplish
when you're effective with five to 10 minutes of time as well.
The traditional idea of we have to meet for 30 minutes
or 60 minutes and beyond.
Now, I don't want to hit that too.
I'm actually going to clap back at myself on that too though
because there's a difference between executive strategy
where you need 90 plus minutes to dive in and build something.
But when it comes to interviewing people
and getting to know people from the start
and saying hi and determining, is it worth it for us
to have a relationship?
Not because you're bad or I'm bad.
But is it effective for this time of my life
when I'm a single father of four
and I've got a lot of other people to spend time with?
It's important to have that speed.
And so your program, again, I'm going to wait promo here
but like it effectively encourages me to not waste time
by doing that.
And I love that.
What's your vision for you?
Let's step outside of the program a little bit.
Let's step outside of not necessarily helping others
but what do you see for yourself on the horizon?
I really hope to impact millions of people
with this platform.
I had no need in the world to create it.
Being in the financial service space,
we all know that if you make it 15, 20 years
in that industry, typically you're having success.
Yes, there's a few people that keep going
and shouldn't be in the industry.
And we're talking to a financial advisor
who deals directly with clients, right?
Not on the backend on Sally.
I own my own business and I serve to a big chunk of clients,
close to 200.
And when COVID hit, it just was my aha moment in life.
I saved up a lot of money.
I did what I told my clients to do,
put money in retirement accounts, saved for a home,
bought a home, bought real estate
on the investment property side.
And everything was going directly as planned.
I've always taken risks.
I moved from New York to Florida
to create my practice in South Florida.
So that was a big transition that happened in 2017
when less people were shifting to remote environments.
Like back then there wasn't much Zoom.
I had to tell people, hey, why don't we jump on our computer
and I could share my screen.
Like people in their 60s and 70s
don't really know how to do that.
Or then they don't know how to do it.
Now they know how to do it.
So I was always entrepreneurial
because I believed in myself
that I could train my clients how to do it
and spend a little extra time
showing them how to use a computer properly
to jump on a Zoom.
And I just said to myself, I was like,
there's more to life than just my chunk of clients
that I'm doing good things for
and making their lives a little bit better.
Cause we're talking people that are already successful.
People that are in their 60s or 70s usually,
and you're making their life better
and they really love me,
but I want to make bigger impact.
And I decided to go all in.
People thought I was absolutely nuts.
They're like, Jason, like 99% of mobile apps fail.
And newsflash, marketplaces, like good luck.
Everyone who tries to create a marketplace,
those things fail too.
And you need a lot of money
because marketplaces and mobile apps are very expensive.
So whatever bill you think you're going to spend,
expect four to five times the amount
and expect it never to stop.
Because the second you build the app,
you think you know what you're doing
and the developers are telling you what you think,
then the real people come in
and tell you what they really want.
You get feedback.
And that happened.
Thankfully, I had mentors that told me the truth.
You had good mentors.
That was good advice.
Cause a lot of times you work with the developers
who sell you, oh yeah,
yours is going to be the next Instagram and TikTok.
And we all know that's not true.
Like you look down at your phone,
almost every app that you use is like a department store,
like Walmart, Target or Amazon,
where it's like Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts.
But when you look at like how many apps you use
that are actually the company,
it's usually Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, right?
It's the main brands.
So you're fighting a war to get on that home screen
and fighting a war to get them to check it daily.
So, I knew I was going uphill,
but I felt it was the right time.
I'm 40 years old.
And I felt with all my contacts
through the Shrimp Tank podcast that I run,
I've had the opportunity to interview close to now
350 podcasts between the Owl show and the Shrimp Tank.
And we're talking top CEOs like CEO Celsius, right?
Who had the same percentage going against them.
99% of beverages go against that brand and they made it.
Right, CEO Tint World, Stretch Zone,
Bolle, BurgerFi.
So I kept witnessing all these entrepreneurs do it.
And I said to myself,
I'm doing the same or more lots of times.
When I look at how I operate my business,
I was like, if they could do it, I could do it.
And I just went for it.
It was that day I decided let's have some fun
and build this app on paper.
And then really hard to make the decision.
Once it says it's gonna be a few hundred grand
to start this app, start it.
It's gonna take about eight months to build at least.
And then after that, it's gonna be very expensive.
We're talking in the teens
or above the teens to continue it.
And I said, I'm gonna go for this.
I don't have to quit my job.
I have the flexibility that I could slow down marketing.
I'm really fortunate.
Because once you have clients in our business,
it's like real estate, right?
Most of their time, most real estate
is like 80% is marketing.
20% is showing the listing and like the websites.
So being a financial service professional,
I'm able to still serve my clients.
No one's upset with me.
They're gonna lose a client ever due to OWL
and then also operate OWL
because the business is structured the way it is.
I'm just not marketing for new clients.
That's a lot of wisdom.
I appreciate you shedding light on all of that
from entrepreneurs out there.
I'm a big fan of, I'm a realist.
I'm an optimistic realist.
And so you can't ignore the fact
that 96% of businesses fell within 10 years.
And then all of the people I've consulted with,
I've seen that the 4% predominantly are surviving.
I mean, they're not thriving after that 10 year mark.
At the same time, the ones who do turn the corner and win,
they're often, they have the same virtues.
They have the same disciplines.
And you mentioned it.
You knew you had those and you knew that
if you could stick to it and move past that,
that you would likely be one of those
that will make it past.
And you got nine more years to prove
that you've made it past that.
But you have zero more years to prove
that you are onto something amazing.
So it is just so awesome to see what you're up to.
So I really do hope that you have that Instagram follow
or take off.
But what's cool about you too, in my opinion,
is there's a lot of people who talk about how great they are,
talk about how great they're going to be along the way.
And it sounds like they like never slow down.
It's just grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind.
I hear you taking cautious measurements
to know that, okay, I can have this too.
I can have a little bit of a balance in the process.
Of course you're gonna be disciplined,
but you're not like Kool-Aid drinking this process of,
I'm gonna win no matter what,
and I'm just gonna crush this and everything
and get out of my way.
And there's people who talk so much about it like that.
You know they're not winning, at least I do.
So I love your approach.
Let's go to that dark side though.
What is the worst leadership experience
that you've ever had?
Yeah, so in the financial service space,
I had one of the worst bosses ever.
I didn't choose them.
I joined a firm in New York City and I was doing great.
And then the firm got sold.
And the person he sold it to, obviously,
it was about the money because no one liked this guy.
And one of those people, you're like, how?
How is this guy even in the industry?
He makes everyone cry around them.
I worked with my brother and sister and we were concerned.
They're like, why are the hills all working here?
Because it was an ego problem.
He's like, instead of the other end,
we're like, this is awesome.
The hills are all amazing.
My sister did recruitment for the firm.
My brother was a manager and I was an advisor.
Most people would say like, wow,
it's hard to get a family to join a business
and all of them are successful.
This person's like, oh no, the hills are too powerful.
Right?
Let's just label it right away.
Yeah, so I just learned so much from this individual.
What not to do?
So it was such a good learning lesson
because everyone at work would come in
and go to lunch and talk about that individual.
And it was just cancer.
We all were just like,
when is this individual gonna leave?
And it took the point to me actually going
to the president of our financial network and said,
you guys had enough time.
We told you this guy's scum.
He's practically doing things illegal.
We're like, we're leaving.
And the company took our side and said,
we're not letting you leave.
We're gonna let you switch firms.
We switched firms and we got out of there.
So it was actually really nice.
We didn't have to like switch to another actual
behind the scenes broker dealer,
financial or financial network you would call it.
So that was just the worst experience.
And I really realized like how important it is
to be a good leader.
Like say thank you, you know,
to the people that enter your office.
Give them a thank you card once in a while, you know,
buy them a coffee, buy them lunch, you know, go overboard.
Like people tell me I buy my team lunch too often.
I'm like, yeah, because I'm like,
did anyone know like there's this thing called
tax write offs, you can write off food, you know,
it's a great, you know, bonding experience.
You gotta eat anyway.
And it's like, what is it once in a while?
Like 200 bucks a month, 300 bucks a month
for buying some extra food for a couple of people, you know,
and all of a sudden you're like three grand a year
in a write off.
Like, so like if that's what like helps the team
and going, you know, you know, out somewhere,
like axe rowing we did once,
one day we went to the Hard Rock Casino.
It's like, it's that stuff's fine, right?
It creates team bonding and they'd also, you know,
really, you know, help make sure your team do things
when you're in need, right?
Where it's not about the money,
where they'll do something at nine o'clock at night
or something went wrong and they're not sitting there like,
oh, it's a nine to five, right?
People on my team are like, it's okay.
Like I can text them at nine o'clock at night, say,
hey, I really need something done real quick.
It doesn't happen often.
You know, I wanna make sure like I'm not overstepping
and they have boundaries, but you know,
I've learned so much from bad leaders over time.
And most of it comes to bad communication.
I've dealt with a lot of high up people
and I'm just shocked like when people, you know,
look up to these individuals and I'm like, no,
it's like at some point, you know, it's gonna unfold.
And then everyone's gonna be like, yeah,
I knew they were a piece of shit.
You're right, like I see it all the time at universities.
I partner with the FU Adams Center.
I'm dealing with a situation right now.
And I'm just like, you're not responding to me?
That is so disrespectful.
Because what I'm asking is something super basic.
So I just think that over time, like, you know,
we look up to a lot of influencers
because they have a lot of high metrics on social media.
And I'm sitting here like, people have a reverse.
Like a lot of the folks you look up to,
wouldn't say the words thank you after, you know,
having them on your podcast, right?
And that's where I see it's like over time,
like, you know, the right entrepreneurs rise,
the 4% that you were speaking about earlier,
they are doing those things, right?
They care, they care, you can't fake it.
Where a lot of influencers today can fake stuff
and then eventually they fall.
And we're seeing that right now.
Social media following doesn't mean as much as it once did.
It took me far too many years.
You know, I had to learn a lot of bad leadership stuff
along the way.
You know, and I guess I have to admit I'm pretty dense
because it took me 15 years in this stuff to finally,
oh, it was probably 13 when I dawned on me.
I was like, you know what?
I've been trying to prove the value
of cultivating great relationships
without looking at the data well enough.
And I thought, oh, I need to look for
as the top places to work.
You know, that list of companies.
Oh, duh.
Like all of these companies are proving the point that,
wow, if you cultivate a great culture,
you're gonna have long-term success.
So model those companies, you know,
like there's an opportunity right there in front of us.
And sometimes it takes years of stupidity to figure it out.
Sometimes it takes a great mentor.
I'm gonna have to say it,
but there are so many ways we can rise up as leaders.
Speaking of, what's the best leadership experience
you've ever had?
It's gonna go to my father, right?
I was five years old.
He had a store in New York City.
He recently passed away, October 23.
And I mean, this man just trained me right, right?
These days, you know, and I'm guilty of it.
We give our kids everything.
My dad didn't break for no one.
The older generation was like,
you want candy at the candy store?
Don't ask that.
He ain't gonna buy it for you.
Don't matter if it was 50 cents a dollar.
You know, go to mom.
Mom, you have a shot.
And he would bring me to his store in New York City
and just teach me about taxes.
He's like, you're gonna stand behind the counter and sell
and then ring up the cash register.
And just, I learned about money through him.
And then he would bring me to garage sales and flea markets.
And it still is my favorite quote.
You'll see it populated throughout the internet here.
And I think it's up on my Instagram story, you go, you get.
Which same thing with networking.
Like you call someone,
something's gonna occur after that.
There's a lot of variations of you go, you get.
But it's really a simple quote.
And my dad would just bring me places
and literally witnessed this man go from meeting
an individual to like, you know, somehow we're at like,
you know, ice hockey, New York Ranger game
or Madison Square Garden for the New York Nets.
I'm like, how did he just get us tickets?
Like in an hour ago, we weren't going, now we are.
And I just witnessed it was just through communicating
and just caring about asking the right questions
and just, you know, chatting with someone.
And I just, you know, we got so many opportunities
from just getting out and about.
So that's my quote.
And that's, you know, one of my best leadership experiences
just seeing him do it.
I love that.
One, being able to honor family
and have that family relationship as a testimony too.
You know, of the strength of parenting.
We all have the opportunity to be like that for our kids,
the ones of us who are parents.
So the, speaking of, you kind of alluded to this,
but you might have a secondary one.
If this was the last lesson, last opportunity to teach
entrepreneurs out there,
what powerful lesson can other visionaries learn
from your experience?
It just speak to many people.
It kind of relates to you go, you get.
Cause I think we watch a lot of individuals
that are super successful, you know, out there.
And they say, learn how to say no,
but they're in a different position.
So too many people take that too literally, right?
Once you get very busy,
like I'm in that seat right now.
We have over 50 brand ambassadors with the OWL brands.
We have, you know, thousands and thousands of downloads
and we get emails and then I run financial service business
to podcasts.
I have to learn to say no and not overcommit
and stay in my lane and stay focused.
But too often we see too many individuals say,
oh no, I don't want to go to that networking event.
Nah, that's a waste of time.
You know, well, what were you doing?
You were on a Saturday afternoon,
like I have a big event this Saturday.
Most of them aren't gonna go, it's Saturday.
We're gonna go to the beach, go to the pool.
So they immediately come up with excuse
that their time's too valuable,
but they don't actually have something to put in that space
that they're saying is too valuable, right?
They're sitting on social media often,
Monday through Friday.
So I look at a lot of entrepreneurs
where there's more than ever before
and most are solo entrepreneurs.
They say no too quickly,
where they should be saying yes more frequently
and just leave them more opportunities.
Instead of social media,
I think I hope we start calling it consumption media
because there's no social interaction
in watching TikTok all day.
Or looking at Snapchats or in scrolling through
and seeing not what your friends even did,
what they posted about what somebody else did.
It's, yeah, it's a complete time suck.
And you gotta get out there.
If you go to more networking events,
they're very reasonably priced typically.
And we're not talking about going to certain events
and like spend two, three grand.
Like yes, those events can be good as well.
But so many in most people's local towns
that you could go and attend,
you connect with good individuals
and literally say let's grab a cup of coffee.
And if you have podcasts,
they want you to come on a podcast, right?
That's my strategy typically.
If they fit the criteria, of course.
But it just, you know,
you just things just land on your lap
the more people you speak with.
Because if you really have a business
that has a good mission tie to it,
like how is it not gonna fall on your lap?
If you're a PR firm, you get out there, right?
You talk to people and you're genuine.
If you're like, they don't care that you're not
maybe a 100 person PR firm.
Maybe they want the one person PR firm
because you're paying attention to that individual.
So I look at like every business,
it's like, you know,
don't always worry about your competition.
People wanna work with other humans, right?
And I outsource so many things to my business
and I work with small teams down to one person,
down to the person on Fiverr,
all the way over to big, big brands like Building Owl.
You know, there's a brand behind Owl
that has 200 employees, right?
So it just, it's okay, you know,
to be a little scattered with the people you work with
and just go out and talk.
But if you always have the excuse like, I'm too busy,
you know, maybe try me next month.
It's like, bullshit, you're not too busy.
We all can find certain amount of time
if you found value in this relationship.
You found value and that's where a lot of people hide.
I mean, they hide from admitting why they don't see it
and they don't know the right questions to ask.
Thomas Keenan and I, shout out to him,
we did a pre-show today
and I brought up the opportunity to say no.
It's amazing to me how the balancing forces
of the universe, I call it God, you know, reliance us.
And I'll just be like,
cause now you come on, you talk about Nazi now.
I'm like, okay, great, there's a balance here
because yes, I'm a big fan of opportunity and abundance
and the context of what I was sharing was,
if you're struggling to hire the right people
and struggling to find the right entities to work with,
then learning to say no so that you don't buy everything
that comes in front of you is perfectly fine.
But you have to be talking to somebody to say no, right?
At least in the context of networking.
And so learning to say no in a networking environment
is very different than saying no to opportunity itself.
Correct, now a lot of people can't see around the corner.
Correct. That's another issue, right?
So it's almost like what you're speaking about.
It's like, there's different lanes
and we're generalizing everything too much.
So there can't be a whole bucket of like, say yes or no.
It's like, well, you know, here's a bucket for my networking
where like, I have to stay in more of the yes mode
to get out there and talk to the right individuals, right?
And then there's a different bucket
where it's like cold emails are coming in
that are soliciting you and yeah, say no to most of those
or ready this, say yes, I'm happy to chat with you.
My cost is X, call me on OWL.
And then that way you could turn some of those nos
maybe into opportunities
because there's an amount we all can't control the nos.
That's the other issue.
So I use OWL as a funnel, as a shield.
Yes, and I love that you've got that
and you talked about leveraging the podcasts.
You know, people sometimes take
the negative connotation of a word
but leveraging is a physics principle.
You know, it's a principle that's important.
We use our resources wisely.
I'm not going to dump this water out on my carpet
to clean it, I'm gonna use it to drink, right?
And in terms of the podcast,
you're using it to provide a value
to those who you know that you could do greater things with
and you're just extending all of branch of value upfront.
And I see more and more people getting into the game
of using a podcast as a platform.
There's nothing wrong with the tactic.
There's nothing wrong with the strategy.
It's how we go about using it as leaders.
So the Shrimp Tank is the pod,
is it the shrimp tank.com?
Yeah, shrimp tank, shrimp tank podcast.com.
It's a franchise that came out back in 2014.
Okay.
Before podcasting was as big as it is today
and it started in Atlanta
and then I bought into the franchise back in 2017.
And then the objective of the show would be
to interview entrepreneurs and partner with the university.
So throughout the United States,
many of these shows have partnered with universities
and it's designed where street smarts
and book smarts collide.
So it's been a really cool opportunity
to interview people at the College of Business
with FU professors.
So they kind of get the street smarts
and the book smarts simultaneously.
And we've had close to 300 episodes now,
which is really cool.
And we take it to the next level.
We now have a student entrepreneurship class
that sits in on the show each week.
So they get to really get real entrepreneurs
coming through the university
and the students really are seeing it live,
not just on TikTok.
Right?
Absolutely.
I'm gonna shift gears fast with you over to Al as well.
And I'd love to talk about,
again, we talked about speed networking
and we're gonna talk a little about coaching as well.
But walk me through a little bit about Al,
somebody who's brand new getting started today.
What's that experience look like?
Yeah, so they land on that homepage,
the screen that you're seeing there.
Now we haven't updated the home screen,
just not the website yet.
And very simple, there's different categories.
So let's say your goal,
I'll say in 2024 is to get on 30 more podcasts, right?
Right off the bat, we have a podcast category,
look at the different podcasters
and if some of them are available to speak with,
literally just start calling them
and then ask them what the criteria is
to get on their podcasts
and land yourself some opportunities to get on their shows.
And the next thing is a lot of those individuals
will not be available to speak with, so you follow them.
And what happens is when you follow them
and they make themselves available,
and this is the secret sauce, right?
They go available, you get a notification,
either a text message or a general notification.
So if you had that one host
that you always want to speak with
and you always wanted to get on their show,
well now boom, get in there, call them,
stop what you're doing and call them.
They don't know how bad that you wanna talk to them,
but you're like, hey, what's going on?
I saw you live on Al
and you're having a genuine conversation.
And we do have one other feature,
you could request someone make themselves available
by clicking a button
and then that expert gets a text message alert
that that person has enough money
in their digital wallet on Al to cover the call costs.
The reason why that's important is let's say an expert
out there is charging $10,000 for 10 minutes,
so I'm an Uber successful, right?
Well, now they know that if they get a text message,
there's a platter waiting with them for 10 grand.
They know it's a very serious inquiry
because other people can't click the button.
They have to get 10 grand into the Owl platform
for your credit card.
So we see a lot of things occurring on Owl
and I'll bring up your friend that introduced us, Connie.
Connie literally joined Owl over a year and a half ago
and when she created her board of advisors,
she literally one by one plucked them from Owl.
I think three quarters of the people
that are part of her board and different subgroups
came from Owl.
And it's really cool to see that all just started
with quick one-on-one phone conversations.
And then we all know Connie's sweetheart, right?
She's so genuine.
And when she asked like, hey, do you wanna be involved
in this nonprofit?
Everyone's like, sure, Connie,
whatever you say we're in because we believe in you.
Her mission could have been 10 different things.
Everyone would see you'd have the same size board
and committees.
So she leveraged the platform for her nonprofit
and she also leverages it to call people
like the CEO grant watches on there, right?
So she wants to get a grant.
So now she's looking for grants out there
and then there's grant writers on there as well.
So we use Connie as an example.
She's able to network with people,
gain knowledge from people
and you could do with Owl what you want, right?
If you only wanna use it to get knowledge, do that.
If you wanna do it to get clients, go for it.
If you're a financial advisor, call people,
tell them what you do
and potentially one of those people are like,
hey, I wanna consider working with you.
You'll move it over to Zoom.
You're not held to an actual conversation directly on Owl.
It's a lot of introduction calls
and the best part about Owl
is there's boundaries around these calls.
So they start with 10 minutes
and then you could request more time.
But if you're the expert or the outbound caller,
you're not feeling it, 10 minutes of your time
and it's over and people leave reviews.
So that's the sweetest thing
because now all of a sudden,
if somebody just called you and was listening to you,
you write that, hey, this individual called me,
wouldn't shut up about X, Y or Z.
So that way you're helping the next person
because that's the problem with social media right now.
When you look at LinkedIn,
there are so many people who massively spam everybody
using all these AI tools out there
and what ends up happening is you set up meeting,
the meeting goes the wrong direction
and then you're like, I wish I didn't take that meeting,
but it looks so good on the front end.
But there's no way to tell the future people,
don't do it, don't take the meeting
because it's a law of large numbers.
Anyone can massively connect with people,
message people, comment, hire people to do all that,
of course, and just literally get meetings
every single day in their schedule through LinkedIn.
Same with Instagram, right?
So OWL prevents those types of individuals.
So it's shining a light on the right people like Connie
and it's also making sure those other solicitors,
you stay away because they're not gonna succeed
because you gotta talk to people, you gotta be human.
It's amazing how many guardrails that you have in there
that actually make the effective,
the coaching and the prospecting process
so much more effective and precise, right?
Those are intangibles that you're basically giving away,
which is fantastic because people still have so much formula
to figure out in terms of growth and business
and how to win, it's like, let's eliminate
as many of the abstract challenges as possible.
Connie, I will also continue to double down on that example.
When I met Connie and we started the talk after the podcast
and she wanted some help with growth,
she's telling me she's got these 30 plus board advisors.
I think it was 36.
We had a very, very strong coaching session
right then and there because I said,
Connie, I said, you have 36 people,
is anybody putting their money where their mouth is?
Like, does anybody actually supported you
and helped you on the growth?
And I'm not gonna reveal the full answer on that,
but I did release a podcast for the PowerTake,
our business news, where I showcased our role play
and training on how to talk to people
about becoming founding members
and investing in what you're doing
because she had any 36, you know, wise asses.
She needs some people to say, you know what?
I'm going to invest in this process
or I'm gonna help you move the needle
or I'm gonna contribute through X, Y or Z actions.
It doesn't have to be financial,
but learning to move beyond that is very hard to do.
And you also have to figure out all the other things
that you mentioned that Al's eliminated.
So it's, dude, it's really, there's a lot of genius there.
Question for these, you know, so Ed Sheeran, you know,
let's say he's on the platform, right?
And he's able to charge that amount of money.
Well, does the app yet have the ability to do,
for Ed Sheeran to do a one to many or one to a couple?
We stayed away from that for a reason.
Our technology can be built.
You know, we'd have to redo some screens, of course,
but you have Club Owls out there, right?
That when we were building Owl had the groups.
You also, you know, have LinkedIn audio now,
you have X slash Twitter, they have their space as well.
So we kind of want to stay away from the group audio.
Way to not take the bait.
I'm staying in our lane.
Everyone's like, why don't you turn on video?
Same reason.
I think that it's a safer platform, one on one audio.
Second you turn on video, you know,
something gets shown that shouldn't be shown.
And all of a sudden we got a liability on our hands.
Yeah.
You know, and also, you know, a lot of people like,
because it's instant calls, you know, I was calling you.
So it's also, it would be a little strange
if all of a sudden a video popped up and like,
oh my God, wasn't ready for that, right?
Or not what you're expecting on the other end.
You know, I think one day we might get to video
because if you look at the trades,
certain professionals like plumbers, like how cool would it be?
And there is a company out there that does this too.
You know, so again, there's already competition,
like just show a video of the plumber
and he's looking at your toilet, telling you like,
hey, you know, this is what's wrong with your toilet.
So you have to have someone come out to your home.
So yeah, there's potential to create video
where we allow the expert to turn on video or audio
when they make themselves available, give them that idea.
But right now, like we're not big enough
to make those big changes.
We wanna stay directly in our name, one-on-one audio,
keep it simple.
There's so much complexity under the hood already.
We do not wanna add more complexity
for the size right now of our platform.
When we scale, we have more developers,
then we could start going into different lanes.
But we see most brands when they start trying
to do too many things,
it just people end up not doing the primary one as much
and it all falls apart.
So I'm just always been sticking to one-on-one audio.
Very simple.
Also.
Minimum viable product for those who don't know.
MVP products are all about keeping it simple,
keeping it focused.
And I would add the MNC.
For those of you who haven't heard that,
minimum necessary change for maximum possible results.
Minimum necessary changes.
That's what I hear Jason doing.
It is what I've seen.
So many entrepreneurs that have succeeded do well.
And we get in the habit very fast of people placing
and trying to create, well, Jackson wanted that.
So I better impress him and do that.
He's got a podcast.
And I don't know.
I love what you just modeled right there
because there are so many visionaries who will benefit
from saying, you know what?
I should listen to who my advisors are.
I should listen to my audience.
I should work as a team to figure these things out.
And then maybe prepare it down the road,
but don't just promise everything to the world
and go build everything just because you can.
That's where the nose comes in.
See, that's where the nose.
I'm big on the nose for that stuff.
Cause you know how many people have said,
why don't you build international?
I'm like, slow down.
Like you open up the world internationally,
you got money scams then hitting you.
Yes you do.
You got different country laws that come back to haunt you.
I'm like, we gotta improve this model,
the United States market first
before we get out ahead of ourselves.
Love it.
Too often you get so much feedback with the mobile app,
change this, change that, change that.
And we all know it's like,
what's really gonna be the driver is the core.
The core is 101 audio calls.
What's funny is-
We're not worried about building all these crazy features
until the core is fixed,
which is actually the start of our show.
I said, how's Al doing right now?
I was like, the core has been fixed.
Core is working so good, better than ever.
Our missed call rate plummeted down 50%.
And it's just like the calls, everyone's like,
oh my God, these calls,
the quality are so much better.
People are picking up all the time now.
And it's just working.
So now we're like, we got the core fix.
Now we go back to marketing.
Absolutely.
I learned a super powerful truth
in one of the best leadership books that's out there.
It's called Tribal Leadership.
And in it, it said when you nail,
when you hit your vision statement,
your team and those around you will argue with it.
And there's a context to that, of course.
They'll wanna change it just a little bit.
They want it to, they're gonna wanna perfect it,
especially your strategic partners.
And they talk about the difference
between being in harmony, you know,
and well, aligning, I can't remember the word they used,
about being on the same page versus alignment.
And alignment is more like harmony
where you've got two different notes.
And that's what you want with people, is the alignment,
not the exact same thing.
And so in other words,
when people are giving you suggestions
on your software or on your vision,
and they want to make changes to it,
it's because they want to belong.
It shows that you are on the right track.
And oftentimes, you give a kid too much cake, kid gets sick.
Right, so be very strategic about the changes that you make.
Again, thank you for leading the way, Jason,
on building your app the way that you've done it.
Just giving us a roadmap too of the recipe,
the process, the blueprints, the strategies.
So much was shared here today.
Those of you listening in right now,
if you go below on the landing page
and you see on the action steps,
we'll have the action steps on there
so you can get started with Alice.
You can go check out the podcasts
and other resources that Jason wants to include.
And that will of course put them on there.
The other call to action apart from that
is in the top right corner, it says, be our guest.
If you have a vision,
even if your app is not crushing it right now
and changing the entire world here in 2024,
maybe you've got a vision that is more central
to your hometown and it's helping others and it's holistic,
be our guest, apply, come and share that with us.
We want to showcase more leadership principles.
And I'm always learning in these too.
So never feel like you're too small.
And I hope you never feel like you're too great
for this podcast as well.
And we will see you on the next episode.
Jason, thank you for your time today.
This was amazing.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
I always enjoy sharing knowledge,
giving tips about my journey where it is currently
and where it's headed, of course.
I'll see you on now.
Take care, everybody.
Bye-bye. Cool.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is gonna get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out.