Falling Down a Rabbit Hole w/ John Newbury | Ep. 87

In this episode David and Gary chat with CEO of Gopher Inc, John Newbury about all things baby bunnies and strong leadership in a world of outsourced talent.

Links:

Gopher Website

John's LinkedIn

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David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.

In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.

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Transcript

David: 0:05

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the biz dev podcast podcast about developing your business. I'm David Baxter, your host, and I'm joined per usual by Gary Voigt, who just happened to win the award for Worst Uber driver. Congratulations, Gary.

Gary: 0:19

Yeah, the award came with a speeding ticket and I lost my job.

David: 0:23

Great award. Well, boy, you're used to you losing those jobs, aren't you?

Gary: 0:26

I fire you ever one star thing, though? I mean, that hurts. Is that hurt?

David: 0:31

Well, you can only take us so many mailboxes before they start to complain. That's all.

Gary: 0:36

I had, like bottles of water. Granted, they were warm. And I had a USB cable connected. You know, I had a little electrical tape where it started to fray but it still worked kind

David: 0:47

of stealing their data from your USB.

Gary: 0:49

Just plug this in. Don't worry about it. Don't worry where it goes. All

David: 0:53

right. More importantly, we're joined by John Newbery, who is the CEO of gopher Inc. And we're going to find out what that means in just a little bit. First, I was reading through Oh, Hi, John, I should say hi, I always forget to do that. So hello, welcome.

John: 1:09

Thank you. Pleasure to be here.

David: 1:11

So I was reading through your LinkedIn as one does. And I noticed that you have been several different things. At Gopher, currently, you're the CEO have been for the last two years. But you were other things. And so I thought it'd be interesting to talk about leadership. And as you've moved for you originally Co Founder and Managing Partner and co founder and now CEO, what do those mean? And what what does that mean, practically?

John: 1:36

Well, so when we first started go for, we were trying to figure out who does what, you know, what were our role is going to be. And two of my partners, Jay and Tom already had full time gigs. And I had just had an opening with a transition out of the fitness industry. So they graciously volunteered me thinking that I would have more time than them. So we, you know, had kind of put together what roles and operations that we were each going to tackle. And then as time progressed, I kind of tackled everything. So those titles really are internal, per se. Sure. Maybe it was just at the time, I wanted to get some LinkedIn attention. I don't know. Probably not. But yeah, I've been operating and managing the day to day with gopher. From day one. I've taken on some other roles, most significantly, probably the development, I initially wasn't kind of overseeing our first developer. And then later on, I took over that I meet with our developer every single day, you know, whether it's a demo, or to tighten up on a particular enhancement, or, you know, anything in between.

David: 3:04

So not to go into this too far right now. But your development, you have that internally, externally.

John: 3:11

Yeah, so we're outsourcing it currently, we have just actually started with a new group. We're looking at it like an accelerator, and you're gonna get a lot more things accomplished than we would with just myself, which is exciting times.

David: 3:30

Very cool vehicle. So the practical question of that. So the question behind the question was leadership was something I like to ask some of our guests is, what does leadership mean to you? Since you've been the head honcho of your app for awhile and other leadership positions before that? What does that mean, practically to you? What is it that makes you a leader? What is it something that you do?

John: 3:54

Yeah, that's a great question. I think that a leader is somebody that listens more than they talk, so that when they talk, they're more impactful. I've had some pretty good role models in my career, doing just that. And I found it impressive that they commanded such attention from a large workforce, and really didn't just go out rah rah rah all the time. But whenever it would be a board meeting, whatever their was said, was extremely impactful. And if it was a field visit, there would be always a time where I could catch these folks talking to employees, listening with both ears, and then changes coming from those conversations. And I just thought it was something that I wanted to carry on for the rest of my life. With everything I mean, this is even practical to to home life, right but to where the people that are working for you feel valued and as to where they can give you that unfiltered, raw feedback on something that's important to them. And in some cases, that feedback, obviously being important to everybody else to is implemented. And it speaks volumes, especially when it works.

David: 5:15

So how big is gopher as a company people wise,

John: 5:20

I am outsourcing most of the work. And so our marketing team is five people, our development team is four to five people, depending on you know, what level of enhancement we're working on here. My business partner Tom, who founded gopher with me, has been our fundraiser. So I've got a bunch of people that I'm in contact with every single day. But if you were talking about who is on the gopher roster, you're looking at him.

David: 5:53

No, I interesting. So you mentioned you had a co founder. So one of the things my business group says that anything with multiple heads is called a monster for a reason. How has that been with you and your co founder? Because now you're both have this idea. You're both working together. And you're in it together? Right. But someone has to step forward as leader, you're clearly CEO. But was that an easy transition that you just said, you know, you're it, I'm going to step back and do fundraising? Or was there more contention?

John: 6:28

Now, that's a great question. And this has definitely not been a monster this has been, which it helped that we were also two friends that value each other for different reasons. But he will be the first to tell you, he's the idea. bigger picture. And I'm looking for how many eyes are in there. And how many T's are in there to cross. So it's okay, it's really more of the you know, and then so when you're talking about at which stage we're in, and depending on what the conversation is, most of it has to do with some sort of a tactical approach. And so I would take that, and then, you know, here we are three years into it. And then those conversations are a lot more often than just, you know, the ideas are out there. So, and Tom has a lot of contacts in the triangle area. And we feel super passionate about this company, and it having a place here. And so we just leverage our strengths along the way. We didn't really ever do a pitch without each other. And it just, it seems to have worked. I wouldn't really try to step on any toes. And he hasn't either. So it's been great. And now as more people come along, you know, they can appreciate that relationship, because it might be somebody get nervous knowing that, hey, these two guys up here, what if one of them goes sideways, and then that what happens to the company. And so that was a talked about concern, initially, but it has kind of proven itself otherwise, since then.

David: 8:01

Nice, okay. Because I always, it's always interesting, like we worked with a startup years ago, and they had six co founders. Now they were a young team. And it was like, just it was like cats just meandering around, like they couldn't stay focus, because they couldn't, they didn't have a leader until finally one of the ladies involved, stepped up and became the CEO. And then the whole thing kind of fell into place, because she was already leading just didn't have that title, right. And the title only mattered in that you have to rely on someone to lead right? You have to if you have multiple co founders, everyone has their own lane. That's great. And they all break some of the table. I mean, they're I can't tell you how many times I wish I had a co founder in terms of getting into the trenches. My wife co founded it with me, but she does finance and stuff like that. Not really what the nerdy stuff that I do. And she's been great, but she's not someone like who says, Okay, you're going to do sales, and I'm going to go do development, right? We didn't we didn't have any of that relationship. So I've always been a little envious of that was very cool. So let's step back, as I say every week now. Thank you, Alex. I'm cognizant of a Gary. Anyway, how did gopher get started? I mean, there's a lot that you're you're wandering into whale infested waters, right, you have TaskRabbit. And I know there are others that I'm totally forgetting right now. What inspired you guys to go you know, we're going to do this better.

John: 9:29

Okay, but before we talked about anything being better, we were on a golf course. And for all those golfers out there that know how important the cart is. So when the cart isn't there, you lose your swing loop, you know, all these different things. So we were like, what if there was an app in which you could literally request anything you wanted to? Not to the point to where they would bring it to the clubhouse or whatever, but they would do whatever whenever a We wanted to and we could just say how desperate we are by throwing out a crazy offer. So I was like, yeah, just another idea. But I was thinking about it. Okay. Well let me and well, then he said, What if we called it gopher? And I was like, man, alright, I'm coming from, you know, living in Hollywood. That's what everybody was at ran errands for the entertainment industry. So I'm like, I definitely haven't heard about that out here. So the second that we finished that round, I went to the Secretary of State and says, Go for available and go for LLC was snatched it up on her 25 bucks, let's get that part out of the way. If it doesn't work out, sell it back, do whatever. Then it was a okay, I really still like this idea. How can we be different? What differentiators are worthy of this type of work that it would take and went through literally every single one of you can think of Uber Lyft, TaskRabbit, handy HomeAdvisor. Angie's List, every single thing out there, even super small regional ones? And just to see what you know, are they all playing into the same thing here? Is there any differences here, if there's enough differences here, which ones we know which ones work right, at least from a valuation standpoint, but what could make go for different and we felt that initially by giving somebody kind of a blank template to work with on expressing what it is that they need to be able to set the price for whatever they you know, wanted to pay to get, you know, a service provided or some items had enough room there to where we could you know, take, we get started ourselves, if we weren't even thinking do we do with friends and family? Do we do a seed? Do we have enough to where we would want to take on this project? And then, you know, the rest is kind of history. From there, there was a lot of things along the way that users helped us decide that that was another opportunity. So, you know, if you want me to go into more, there we can that's a rabbit hole in some cases. But you know, there was the fact that because you know, you titled your own requests, and you described your own request. So think about how much trouble you can get into there. Yeah,

David: 12:22

well, yeah, I mean, the user stuff, I mean, anytime you have user uploaded or inputted data, you are opening yourself up to a very scary world, we, we joke, no matter what the app is, we've built all sorts of ones. And you're like, you know, when do the lewd pictures start to show up on this, it's like, that's when you've made it. And sadly, in this world is when someone you're not related to start downloading your app. And of course, what they're gonna do is upload something completely offensive. And that's just a common thing. There's a there, this is a little inside baseball, but there are apps upon apps that help you recognize those things, like Nintendo invented one so that you couldn't draw a male anatomy with their stylus, they would recognize it and and not allow you to upload it like they had to build their own. I mean, there are dozens of these things, because people just do this. So I imagine when you have tasks, and you set the price, you are opening yourself up to some very strange possibilities. So you guys, from a business perspective, I assume you take a percentage of said cut $50, you guys take a percentage.

John: 13:35

Yes, so and the only the requester sees it and basically look at it as like you are paying to use the app, there's a small fee, your fee can range from 99 cents on a delivery up to no more than 499 for a home service project, which at the cost of some of these offerings that is doesn't even show up as a percentage. And then there's a percent to do, you know, offset the transaction was striped. So that's it. We are going to continue to work to be the loss leader when it comes to that transaction revenue because there's all kinds of other fantastic opportunities there where we can earn but not on the backs of our users, nor on the workers who really are coming into one of the most worker centric type apps that are available. If I want to be a gopher today, I can log in and get my validation through stripe to do a gopher Pro, if I want to take a background check Pro Plus, if I want to add DMV to it, and tomorrow, I'm making$300 doing things on my own term and every single request that comes through I know exactly what will be deposited in my account before I do the job. So transparency is important to us. And we provide that on both platforms.

David: 14:50

So I want you to come get the money. And I say 50 bucks your I pay immediately five bucks. Thanks for that request or something, some fee doesn't matter the amount, I pay a fee to you to post that sucker, right. And then the transaction fee happens afterwards when it's you pay through the app. Now, what if I don't pay through the app, I decide to slip this guy 50 bucks on his own. This is something that a lot of apps run to, you know, they run into this is, hey, I can it's very easy for now, because we're meeting face to face most likely in a lot of these situations. So it's, I'll save 10% It'll be good. Here's 50 bucks, or whatever. And that I'm sure is against your tos. But or Terms of Service? Yeah. But I'm sure it's also happened. So how do you mitigate, like, we had one guy who had an idea for an app. And we said, because of just the nature of that idea, they're going to be that transaction will not happen on your platform, guaranteed. So you're going to lose 80% of your revenue, if that's what you think's going to happen. So we had to come up with another monetization strategy. That's why I'm kind of digging because this is a common problem that a lot of startups have. And I'm curious how you got around it.

John: 16:09

Yeah, so I wouldn't necessarily say were around it, we're trying to be around it. But we're also trying to because of the transparency, your requests are, and I'm the example that you choose, you're gonna pay us $4, little over $4. So we found you whoever you needed whenever you needed it for whatever it was. And all you had to do was pay us that small$4 fee. And then you pay the gopher to do it whenever you want it to, when they show up, do whatever the work is they'll and they'll update it along the way. So you can go to update them in progress, update items purchase update completed, and then you'll rate me and I'll rate you. And then the only way that you would technically be able to go outside the app is is of all that stuff happened. And then you just cancelled it out of nowhere with saying what, and then you don't ever use the app again, and neither is the other person. If that's what $4 is worth to you, then we lost that person's business, unfortunately. And trust me, I'll try to claw it back somehow, through inspiration. But I think that the way that that process is done with a dual confirmation, the rating before and after, you've see how many jobs the gophers done before and they see as a requester, how many jobs and a rating as well. So there's a lot of information to be learned right off the bat. And again, we're trying to be the last leader, where we find a little bit of a interesting situation is because there are other delivery type apps and service type apps that do have very high fees, it seems like the tip portion is what gets lost in the transaction there. And so if you came from that mindset, and then you come over to go for and you put out a relatively low offer, you probably wouldn't get it accepted. But we introduced the counter feature, you know, a year ago to where somebody says, you know, can you do XYZ for $5? Then I say no, but I'd be happy to do it for 750, then the requester can look at it, how bad do I want XYZ, alright, I'll do it for 750. So there is a counter feature where we're trying to get to fair market value for every service here. And as obviously volume is going to help us determine what that is. But we give them a way to do that. Just like there's a brand new feature as well, where you don't know the price that you want, you want some of the King hang three ceiling fans, you want an electrician to do that. I don't know what to offer. So we allow you to say make me an offer. So literally, the request goes out to every gopher that's on the queue for only home services, and even down to electrician. And instead of having $1 amount on there. It says make me an offer. And so that person sees I need three ceiling fans, I might have the pictures, I see what I need to do. All right. I'll do that for 150. And then now that goes back to the user. If 150 works. There's a job.

Gary: 19:07

Okay. I have a question. And this is going to turn a little bit but once you did get the app started, how did you validate the idea? And how did you market the app?

John: 19:19

So we're from Holly Springs. We've got two really big communities in this area in which we're both affiliated with the 12 Oaks area, which is where we're members of golf and at the time, and then Holly Glen, which is where I live now like 1100 unit tracks I think I'm not sure is big. So we just went grassroots to every social media page, tried to piggyback on some local events in town, set up booths, talk about it, planted you know, some gophers some requesters and see if we can get you know, some stuff going He's brought me back to one of the most impossible missions that seems like but, you know, here we are almost 30,000 users later 12,000 transactions, learning more and more,

Gary: 20:13

the growth has been organic through the use of the app, because just more gophers and more requestors, or have you been trying to advertise it a little bit more.

John: 20:24

So this last year with the closing of our seed round, or at least the capital raise during the process allowed us to do a little bit more with marketing than we'd ever done before we did TV for the first time last year. And we did a lot more marketing, where we're spending and boosting things. We did a little programmatic, we're still trying to figure all that out. Right now, we're actually doing some content with a lot of different requests, which is, you know, it's a little too early, too premature. But if you follow us after this, you'll I think you'll like it, it's an interesting way to evolve other parts of communities, but at the same time accomplish making requests and fulfilling them with new gophers, because we're doing this in a new town, or boon. And we're leveraging App State, but it's that we didn't have any users up to a month ago.

Gary: 21:23

Yeah, I was gonna You mentioned yet a five person team that was marketing. And I was wondering how you're gonna, how you were implementing those five people as far as marketing the app, like David said, regionally, or trying to expand past the triangle in the North Carolina area.

John: 21:39

That's our goal. And 22 are as we exit 2023, this year, we would really like to scale, we would like to know, what is the optimal cost per acquisition on all the different social platforms? How do we go into any type of SEO does TV work, what venues and TV I mean, we're going to figure all of that out this year, so that when we do go to a new market, and that new market is not going to just be out of thin air, with only 15,000 of our user base coming from the Raleigh area that other 15 that's coming from all over the place? Well, there's the obvious metros in which have adopted the app, heard about it from the App Store, heard about it from, you know, all these different things. And we'll leverage that community already there with some better content than what we've done in the past. So that's one of our goals is to always continue to tell the story of gopher to the audience that you know, will hear about it in the best possible way that we can.

David: 22:36

One thing that's common with startups, is that regional aspect. And so it's really interesting to me. So if I live in Des Moines, Iowa, and I download your app, because I have a friend who told me about it, the odds of me getting a gopher a person to fulfill my request is very, very low. I picked the Moines randomly in a city, but probably a smaller city even worse. So so how do you handle that bad experience for that person? Do you tell them? Dude, we're not in Des Moines? Or do you just let them try it and fail? Or how do you handle that originality of what you're doing?

John: 23:15

That's a great question. And so okay, I have literally called, personally, probably the first 3000 transactions. And I know that everybody that's working with me now. And that's going to continue to work with me hates when I say that, because you should be doing this with your time, and so on and so forth. But I've learned so much about this customer base, and who wants to use it. But what I would do is literally tell the person I'm sorry, first of all, how did you hear about us? I'm sorry, we couldn't figure out our your request and then look on a map, because every time somebody downloads is put a pin map in there to see all right, is there a potential here where I can maybe muscle up a transaction, which I can't do anymore? But that's what I would try to do? And then we'll learn like, how did you possibly hear about us. And if there's a way in which I could create a little network, in that particular area, we would try to, I didn't have the resources available that I have today. But with our team today in place, and implementing some unique learnings to the app, we'll be able to assist folks at a much greater level even in some of those remote areas. So for example, where even if there wasn't any gophers, in that particular area, we could find where everybody that's looking for exactly what gophers are looking for via the app store, the Play Store, Google Search Craigslist, any type of vehicle in which we can quickly you know, get gophers up and running to where that person within an hour resubmitted that request there might be likeliness that somebody is available. Depending on the nature of it. No financial electrician, maybe not deliver something yes

David: 25:00

So you wouldn't recommend and this is why this is so interesting because we deal with this all the time. And I always struggle with right, what is the right way. So you would not recommend geo blocking someone not physically. But someone downloads your app in a city you don't recognize you don't recommend a banner or something saying, dude, sorry, we couldn't get to you. You say, you know, you reached out to them? And kind of did that in a very good customer service way. Is that the better way you think? Or is it better to put that banner? Put the pin in it? Oh, Des Moines, Iowa. Interesting. Boom. Oh, we've gotten 20 in Des Moines, Iowa. Oh, interesting. Okay, maybe we need to go and incentivize gophers or whatever. How your recommendation? Is that customer service angle? Or would you say automated a little bit better?

John: 25:52

No, that was that was in a yes, of course, that was indeed, Hey, you can't be spending your time doing this. So today, if you're in an area in which we don't have gophers within 20 miles, when you put in the address of wherever your destination is, it's going to automatically see how many gophers are available. So if it says zero, then I'm trying not to say we're not in your area yet. Because within 24 hours, we can be in your area. And so I feel like if you if an app to deliver it and say we're not here, then you're probably thinking they're not going to be tomorrow. With go for you can be and so we're trying to meet in the middle here on setting a real expectation, hey, there's zero golfers available right now, or maybe one or two. But not to just definitively say now we're not here yet. kick rocks until we come? Would wouldn't want to do that.

David: 26:46

It didn't. Here's an interesting now this might be a little too nerdy. But what do you define as gophers available? Is that they're actively open?

John: 26:56

No, that's a good question. So today, what it would mean is that you have downloaded the app, fulfilled your payout, or set it up, basically, so that you can get paid. And then in the filter, where you select the type of jobs you have available, it matches the type of job that's needed for that requester. So you wanted to delivery, it would be everybody that's registered and have able to be on the app. It's not like Greenlight go, these people are just out here with you know, white knuckling ready to go. It's not quite that sophisticated yet,

Gary: 27:30

not just the total number of users in the geographical area area, it's ones that are actually relevant to that request.

John: 27:37

Yeah, that's a learning I want to be able to tackle this year is if you see x amount are available, that like you can, if it's greater than one, you're probably going to get that job. That's how I would like it to be. But we don't, I don't know if I said this, I don't think I did. But gophers aren't employees. So we're a true marketplace. To have that type of ability. And, you know, awareness of who these people are at what times, we're going to have to do something a little bit different, whether it be some sort of like subscription model or perks that we can provide for them or something like that. And we've got our finger on that right now. But just not enough to really say, Hey, here's, here's what we think we're gonna do.

David: 28:22

One thing that you guys, I'm sure are not dealing with yet, but it will come is the scary side of this app. Right? At some point, you're going to reach a what's the right word, a quorum, her horizon, event horizon, whatever the science fiction term I'm thinking of, but you're gonna start getting bad people on the app. It happens with every app. For instance, Airbnb made news. A decade ago, when someone rented out a house and trashed it just completely annihilated. Because of that Airbnb started because everyone freaked out and didn't want their house to be rented. They started saying, Hey, if you rent with us, we got a million dollars of insurance, protect your house, you're fine. They they updated very quickly, to have this kind of thing. So this is the kind of thing every app has to deal with. At some point. Of course, probably you haven't had to deal with it now. But have you guys thought about that stuff? Contingency plans, something bad happens, you know, Someone got hurt, whatever it you know, and it's accident, and maybe not an accident? Whatever. How like Uber bad drivers. I mean, there's all sorts of stories, bad riders, right? You hear about poor drivers getting beat up by a third rider? I mean, it could go both ways.

Gary: 29:35

Yeah. Or even just Craigslist stories. You hear those two, and that's just setting up, you know, a sale and then what happens afterward? They're not involved in but still, there's some stories that come along. After you get a certain number of users. There's gonna be some bad apples.

John: 29:49

So to answer your question, from day one, Inception, legal and PR have been top of mind and obviously PR can be 10 times seems more likely or more expensive because of the drama that comes with it. Whereas we might not be liable in any way shape or form for what happened. But you heard Bofur. And so, but yeah, we are wanting to make it to where there's trust along the way and want to try to do that by, you know, understanding where this user is in their lifecycle on the platform on both sides. You this gophers done 1000, and their background check. This requesters had 500 requests made five stars. And then, you know, there's other things too, that we're going to decide do we want everyone to have to have a band of mandatory background check, even for something that where they're not even going to really be seeing people that often are some, we're trying to think through all of those and the timing. But you know, if it, if it's up to me, I want the timing to be yesterday, because if you're talking about how I'm having to prove trust, then I've failed in some way, shape, or form. And so, you know, to answer your question, that is something that's always going to be important to us. And fortunately, all of these other folks, especially Craigslist, has a ton of case presidents out there to learn from. But again, things happen, and you just got to try to figure out how to you learn from them, and hopefully doesn't happen to you. And you can learn from someone else, because that's how we're created our terms of service, privacy policy, our prohibited list, all of those things have been from people that have kind of gotten there before us.

David: 31:41

Where are you guys at in terms of your lifecycle? Are you on a runway? Are you fully sufficient in terms of your pain? You know, you're making enough revenue to pay your bills? Are you making a salary? Where are you in your world?

John: 31:55

Yeah, so we are, in our very, let's, let's call it, people get mad when I do this as well, I wouldn't call it pre revenue, although we're, we're not profitable, but we're making money, but our revenue stream pathway is wildly different than most, and that you would think, whereas we're learning about behaviors as we go. And so the more transactions, the more behaviors there are. And so that's kind of what I mentioned earlier about being the last leader, it's kind of fits into the scheme of that. Now, it's definitely not how you go to VCs and ask for money or peas and ask for money. So we're not making revenue or real revenue yet. But the information that comes from a transaction, which is all compliant, but it's totally behavioral, like, for example, you guys ever seen Google rewards? You get popped up, you know, a Google rewards? Where are you at one of these five locations, and you know, you were because that's how Google knew you were. And then it asks you a series of questions on down and paying you, you know, up to $1. And something for that information, when I'm hoping that everybody has massive integrity out there and never just trying to fudge those numbers to see if it'll give them $1 versus 70 cents. But you don't have to ask those questions, there's really no benefit in doing that. One of these days, we'll be able to tell you every single thing that they needed to know, right off the bat. And so cut out that person and go ahead and just pay us for the information that you're looking for, which actually did happen, and isn't like a survey to where you're asking for somebody in whatever particular topic you're trying to learn about. Not it? Was this person in the morning? Is this person grieving? Is this person super happy? You know, information is always different, depending on our mood sets, where all the information that we're going to be able to provide on Capture is non personal, so it's compliant, but it also is valuable to retailers, vendors,

Gary: 34:08

etc. And then do you have a I'm guessing a model to stream advertising into the feeds? Eventually?

John: 34:16

Yeah, yes, on both platforms. So one of them will be a little bit easier than the other one will obviously just provide you with incentives. Now, we are working on something a little bit more proprietary on the gopher side. And that's where we feel like there's a really good place to now, you know, with go for anything you want can be attained at multiple locations in some cases. So for example, if you wanted a particular type of beer, let's say, well, there's multiple retailers that have that, which one wants to steer you into buy it from them to take it to the request, you know, so that's kind of a hint to it, too. but we're looking for,

David: 35:01

what is your goal with the company? You say? Do you want to you know, you're waving your magic wand, and it's 510 years, the years don't matter, just X number of years. What is success to you? Are you the next TaskRabbit, where you're worth a gazillion dollars? Are you? I'm 10 employees, and I'm making a nice salary and everybody's making good money. It's a nice regional lifestyle business, what is what is success to you?

John: 35:27

Success to me is being able to hand off this company to somebody to take it to where I never could. So when we get to that level, I'm not going to be the CEO. I'm trying to find somebody and I've been doing this for a year, I'm actively interviewing people to come and take us to the moon, I know that my was my experience alone, I don't have the capacity to do that. I'm not easily duped. So I mean, I'm gonna know in a lot of cases, is this the right face of our company. But I think that where can provide the most values and the product, I've got a good pulse on both sides of the marketplace, on internally, and from a competitor standpoint, I mean, I didn't build this company and not do every other job that's available out there every other gig that's available out there, without remaining completely convicted, that we have the right model to, to do really big things, you know, just think of something powered by gopher all over the place with tons of businesses. And so right now our goal is to stay the course, build this tech stack to where it's is definitely attractive. And both users like it businesses like it. And then have somebody take us, you know, for a ride here. If I've got a seat on the bus, it's still a seat. That's true.

Gary: 37:00

I got you. So one thing we ask everybody that we interview here, John, what are the top three pieces of advice that you would give any entrepreneur, no business or startup? First log that your

John: 37:11

business to fail with the goal in mind of trying to show how this idea cannot work? Look everywhere to see if you really have a place on the market. And the reason I say that is because once you do and you still convicted, it'll come from a much deeper level than before, when you are trying to look for ways for your business to fail. And you still feel wildly convicted and passionate that it has a chance to make it. It will be to your benefit for sure. I think that if you are if people can feel your passion and conviction, if they're on the fence on joining your team, being an investor being a team member, that sometimes that is going to be the difference we've had a lot of people invest in us not just invest for the return. And I think is because of what I just mentioned. Okay, so I think another one would be, know your value to the business at all parts and where your value is today. You know, I'm mostly speaking to brand new founders who really love their idea, but don't want any other hands in the cookie jar. Sometimes your value today is not where it's going to be later. And that could probably cause some stickiness in that not wanting to change guards. And you know, that person might be the one that takes you to the next level. Not through my own personal experience. But through experiences and translation from other people that I respect Investor's Business people really wanted a certain person to entertain the idea of stepping aside so that they can meet a growth spurt a little faster. And because of this as my business didn't necessarily go as planned. So I would always just try to pay that advice forward. If you find yourself not really humble and you wanting to be the best, all the time with everything that has to do with your business might not be when it comes time to build a team. Do somebody trust find people that you trust however it takes you to get to know people? How were you break bread with people? Find people that you can trust I've over this last greater than a year. I've been looking for, you know, people to come on to this team. And as we're starting to make some deals and bring some people on. It's really refreshing and I to know I don't have to second guess agendas and don't have to second guess you know, people's expectations. If you're aligned and you're trying As parents from the start, and you can trust somebody, to me, I think you're gonna get a lot further with your business than if you're always cya type of thing.

David: 40:11

Good advice, man. Well, I appreciate you being here. John. I love learning about startups. I think this was really interesting because it touches on so many things that so many startups run into such as reach finality, pricing, avoiding getting paid, because you've got, you know, get paid during the transaction, those kinds of things. We run into those all the time. So it's nice to hear someone who's in the thick of it, and figuring that out in in the trenches. So I appreciate your time very much.

John: 40:39

Yeah. Thank you guys for giving me the opportunity.

Gary: 40:42

John, if anybody wants to learn anything more about you or about Gopher, how can they get in touch?

John: 40:48

So my name is John Newbery, I'm all over every social platform. Gopher is under gopher Inc, in most cases, but if you're searching gopher mobile app, or gopher Inc, you'll find this on any social platform. And then our website is www dot gopher go.io.

Gary: 41:09

I like that go for go. Alright, well, we'll include those links in the show notes. So there'll be below the video here on YouTube and throughout all the other podcast platforms that we distribute on. And if anybody has questions for us, you can email us at Hello at the big pixel dotnet. You can leave a comment below this video or you could just connect with us on any one of our social media platforms as well.

David: 41:31

Awesome. Well, thank you again, John, for joining us. This has been a lot of fun.

John: 41:35

Yes, sir. Take care fellows.

David: 41:37

See y'all next week.