Read The Transcript

It's another beautiful day on the pirate broadcast. While I get my cup going. Cheers.

Poppa Chris how are you today.

I'm amazing. It's a beautiful day in Miami Florida. Sorry, I am in an office space. But you can't see the sun.

So so on the pirate broadcasts, we love to bring you know, some interesting people doing interesting things. And Chris is no different. And he is in the trenches creating building growing companies. And I love the fact that he's a new father and he has that new experience of being a father and we're going to be talking about life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and whatever that's looking like. So Chris talk a little bit about how you got to where you are today. You know what's what's the short story in the version of what developed Chris to be here today. I'm fascinated by that.

It kind of goes back to when I was a kid. So I was in a phase because I had a single mom single dad, divorced parents living in Queens. We moved literally every single year of my life from age 5 until 20. So I had to make new friends wherever I was could say new friends or a major connector. A major connector, but I had to understand you know what was happening around me what they were like and how-to, you know, to take the parts of myself and themselves and make them make sense. So it's really going to be almost like you know very aware human being and being almost a chameleon-like this is what they're like when we try that and not judge him at first that's a big thing in life these days. Everyone always think of what they're saying next with a judging somebody and what's coming out of our mouths. And I was able to be be very friendly and open and you see the best in people sometimes. Often if you do that. And that got me by, I played baseball my whole life, Junior High up I also played baseball in college I played in 1994 in China went to college but there didn't last very long. I had an awful injury first year and basically stopped playing at that point. But it got me through college for free and after college, I graduated and I had a number of jobs that I did love. I learned a lot about managing teams.
So I worked oddly enough at CVS pharmacy as a management trainee running a 24-hour store in Times Square which is mayhem. Customers Going in the bathroom on the floor getting robbed at knifepoint. Crazy stuff. I learned a lot about life in doing that in New York City. I took a job at a startup and learned early on how hard that is. I spent the bulk of my career at 1-800-flowers.com for eight years. Growing all the corporate partnerships. And from there I learned what it meant to actually make a partnership happen across two corporate entities that otherwise would not have made sense in a lot of it. On the B2B side. And from there I kind of thrived that was in the early days of social media. We especially know we're just getting into that game of that and they were really good about testing new things. They're always down like, Yeah we'll open with their capitals. We'll do Facebook we'll do Instagram and they were always the first person there and it really helped me a lot to kind of test these new markets and you're seeing now people who get in early on a lot of these platforms. They thrive because they're the first first mover advantage. And if you're good you really thrive and then move to Miami about 70 years ago my lovely wife brought me here and it was a beautiful journey.
It took a little convincing but once I got here it's like oh this is good. Everyday summer can't beat that you can't beat that. And I wanted to get involved in the city I was living in because I was working remotely for a while for my on the job for 1-800-flowers and I wanted to get involved in the city and I met the fellows who and ladies who started work whereby, and they were doing a great thing in the city by making city complications that really help people connected to what's happening around them, basically reminds like the scheme of the hustle that it cuts through the clutter of what's happening news and that you get help helps to get engaged and being local you can actually do that part a much better.
So here's an event happening come join us we'll take you with us because of the olive branch. I love doing that with people I love showing them how to get involved how to do a thing how to open that door and let them run with it and that's what our job is to this day is to help people build their communities help them grow and scale and we realized pretty much the last year or so that we're doing it all wrong. We're doing it. We're building them ourselves. We could've done to our knowledge and made it open. So we're just now open source like here is the backbone our business is you as a person Russ Johns you should make your own publication You should do your own newsletter you should do your daily You're on LinkedIn Live. You should be making written content you should be doing posting events. You should be having memberships you should have products all the backbones of things do not exist in the same place. They're all separate. They're all over the place and no one has known as a game to actually use the right best way. And notice I grow their audience through them and a lot of those services don't help me grow. They just say here is the tool. Good luck.

Yeah.

And then rely on having to rely on advertising you have to rely on hiring an agency so I'm fumbling through it. And a lot of times we saw it like our our template to what we're doing made sense. And for bigger interest topics our topics were very small. So it's like one city. So how can they get only as big as that city is? That's kind of like pigeonhole to how large it can get.
We see this type being this format for anybody. Remember organizations say you're a nonprofit you know the CHAMBER OF COMMERCE You should become a media company. That's your job. Your job is to tell stories of people who are in the community. Your job is to make things that are up in a place that you're in. If you're a non-profit doing like Everglades research You have people to believe what you're doing and get them activated and actually taking action.

Well, I think a lot of people are confused by this profit/nonprofit space because they're thinking that they have to be a certain way or do a certain thing and ultimately like you said I think it goes back to storytelling. You know even the independent consultant that you know goes out and maybe does accounting or coaching or speakers there I did a startup a number of years ago called Future Media Association the whole concept was we're all now in the position of being a producer of content whether it's words images audio or video. It's all about how can I produce content. Get it out there in the world. That allows me to either highlight people in the community or highlight what I'm doing or how I'm helping or what you're doing and what you're doing to help. And I think it's really we're changing and shifting because you know years ago when it was broadcast media you had three channels to surf through and you had to get up off the couch to do it and he had billboards and you had some newspaper ads and you had some door hangers and things like that. Now we have an opportunity to have a two-way conversation in social media and like like you said the first-person advantage you know first the doctors are really taken advantage of this because they scale and grow so quickly because they learn and know the platforms and so, you know as you see this where whereby us is if you can consolidate some of those skils and bring them together the integration you know, it's taken you know I've spent a years on integration and email campaigns and landing pages and all this all these things and it's like. You know what is going on. And so if you have an opportunity to actually bring this together in one place it simplifies it and takes the tech out of the equation right.

Totally totally. No. Yeah.

So. So what's the now that you've kind of been pivoting and putting this tool in the hands of the end-user what's the business model? and how they're going to develop going forward?

I mean I really believe that for a person to thrive as an organization you have to tap sustainable income. If they diversify your income in many ways. So that means having a membership model that can support your work and maybe not have any advertisements in it, having a model where you do have you know people sponsoring your work, making creative product sales making event kind of like formats making projects around certain topics come to the kind of topics that make sense. So say you know you own the entrepreneur conversation you should maybe align with maybe a venture capital group that wants you to kind of run their daily talking about different points in investing in startups. That is a whole business that is open the field is open for any type of topic to be owned to match with a corporate sponsor. And that for me of one can be your lifeblood you know the other pay you know a couple of thousand dollars a month and you're a happy man living out there in Arizona.

Yeah well, it's funny that you should bring that up because you know I'm right now. And we talked about one idea I'm building and I just love the idea I came up in the broadcast world.
You know advertising space and technology. And so one of the challenges the business owners have is that they don't have any time they don't have enough time to do what they need to do for.
For some of the marketing efforts, some of the conversations that have to take place and then they don't necessarily want to deal with all the technology are required to bring it together.
And so pirate broadcast has been an experiment and a test to you know, MBP a platform that I'm developing that allows other organizations and companies to bring this together and build on their media company. So you know very very similar very parallel ideas and concepts in a different direction from a different direction. And I think I think realistically I think a lot of companies could actually start their own podcast which already seeing you know larger organizations Wal-Mart, Kroger's and some of these you know retail outlets are now starting podcasts and they can do visual they could do video they could do the same thing because like right now Chris we're streaming on Facebook we're streaming on YouTube were streaming on Periscope.
And before the end of the day, you'll be on our pod post and with a transcription and a podcast. So all of this creative process and then you could take that data and that information and you can slice it in multiple sections and then distribute again and redistribute as a media content. And then you know in a few months you've got a ton of content. And it's amazing what you can accomplish with a little bit of video and repurposing content here picking some snapshots and promoting it out because it is about the story it is what is the story because if you're not managing your story somebody is else's right.

100 percent you gotta be your own cheerleader. I mean I have for years I have been preaching this to my company and we don't have the best cheerleaders actually. So you think we as a media company you'd be one of overnight and most that most US news is really based in journalism. Our biggest goal what we started five years ago has been to save a lot of people from there is not having paper anymore. So I think that's very very widely known as News inserts and this is in places that are like smaller than like you know twenty thousand people in a city, there not going to have a paper within five years because they can't afford it without ad revenue and they haven't swapped to digital yet to become member-based organization or taking in online, dollars or even having probably a team of like two or three people they can't even exist in that. They need to get a new model for that and a lot of it is maybe we'll go into non-profit functions which you know I'm pretty much all in to see work here and a lot of sense. You know if you're doing a civic duty, you almost it should be right now.

Well, I've seen some really successful people in, say like the real estate space and what they'll do is they'll create a community newspaper up store the digital online update and they'll give highlights on new businesses, restaurants that are opening, you know activities that are taking place and they use all of this content, which is you know just accessing the public and the people around you and then distributing that to their potential clients. And what it does is it positions the individual as being the authority in the community. Right. So newspapers no longer the source of inspiration for people to go do things or watch a ballgame or go to an activity or player an event. It's individuals that are producing media and in the community and then repurposing that. And it's with this idea and this model you know it's amazing to think about what we can do as individuals to contribute to the community.

You have base all the source that's behind me is that Live Like You live here. You just show up in your communities and that community can be in person where you live or can be on the Internet where you live and a lot of people I think are watching this. Get that but most common folks don't. They're really concerned about it very much a very much smaller sites call themselves and their immediate family so.

So speaking of family you're a new father. You know you've been in the tech space for a long Poppa Chris is here is showing up today and you know you have a unique style you have a unique experience you're an individual. So in your community and as you grow this this community out how do you see children and individuals that are not necessarily invested in the tech space.
How are you utilizing tech or how do you see tech evolving in 10 years 15 years for your kids you know. So how does that how do you visualize that in your head.

You know I'm I've been I've had a think about this a lot right now. And it's having a twelve-year-old and you know I'm kind of like scared to give him my phone because I feel like once they get that it's an endless hole. But I mean most of the things that I learned have been from technology you know everything I do on research rises on my computer. So it if you use it views it right then it's wonderful, as far as you know the way we use it. And I think it's can be a lot more automated you know give me a lot more voice activation for stuff. Let's talk more talking more visual. I think they'll be a lot more appreciation for written formats actually as we get older. You're seeing people return actually to like these like longer form higher end versions of content so magazines that before we're going extinct coming back. People like to have a very beautiful thing in their hands. So it's the higher quality stuff that that's going to live on. You don't need to make using only the paper anymore to print because that that's being done on the Internet. But some things are meant for it basically to be held in and read. I wish in the future I would say if I don't know it.

It's all perspective.

I mean every time in my life right now.

A lot of people you know the A.I. that you know so people fear it. So people embrace it. You know I feel the people that are going to are going to like we talked about early adopters with big,
and the people that can learn how to adapt and receive and utilize the tools that are in their hands are the ones that are going to make a difference in the world you know and so many things,
because we're no longer limited to geography you know 50 years ago we were limited to you know OK what's around me what's local you know and now it's what's global and what's so and so doing in Sweden, and Australia. What what are some other people doing that are very similar or like-minded individuals you know and so. So this mindshare across the world is really going to make an impact is going to continue to make an impact that already has made an impact. And I just think it's mind-blowing when we talk about and we think about how we can understand it learn how to use it to go to help others. I mean it's like OK let's build something that's really cool that helps people. What's wrong with that. You know and then the other camp is you know I'm going to take over and are all going to be. We're going to become robots. You walk into a house a smart house you get told what to do. It's like I don't know if that's going to work or not but I.
So I just I'm just fascinated by it and I love the fact that we're having this conversation and this is exactly the pirate broadcast is about I wanted to highlight some people that are here and say hello and give a shout out to Vicki O'Neill. She's always in here. She'd rather live in Florida.

Come on over. We'll take it. Yeah.

She lives in Ohio. Jennifer all is well Juan Castro, Gabriel thank you so much Arcot. Thank you so much Sherri Lally. Future will say hey Alexa order two more gondola hairnets.
She does make Gondola hair nets

I don't know what that is, show me one.

Well, say in the construction site where they had the bins where you're taking the bins out. You know so you can contain the waste. So you put these giant covers over them, like you're covering you know you had to cover your load on waste products and I'll get her on the show and we can talk about it but it's a cool product she invented it. She put this together solving problems she's great at it she's an awesome individual that you should know. So if you're not connected with Chris here let me let me do this Chris. Yeah because this is really cool. So if you're not connected Chris join him right here.

I'll post a link in the feed. Yeah. So I really I love that.

You know we have a community like LinkedIn so how How is LinkedIn been for you. I mean where do you hang out mostly what's your social profile look like for those that don't know you yet. Chris

on LinkedIn. I get a lot of people coming into to discuss you know advisement done on startups and not you know helping them find people who invest in them or business model kind of like ironing out. It's great. I love it. I love talking to people about what they're working on. I too I learn a lot about the people's work. What they're making and I see the ones there that that need you know some help or ones that could not even be a thing. But I like to talk about it so I'm always down to kind of discuss those things. And I've been on LinkedIn I think since I was 20 years now since college which just crazy how long that's been. And I could say I talk to everyone who hits me up so I'm going to discuss, Hey what do we have in common that I can we can help each other out. I don't like to randomly have connections I don't talk to you. So you know it's hard sometimes I have a list of like probably 50 or so to get to but I guess. Eventually, some folks who don't live in America. And I'm always like as a language barrier sometimes you feel like you're a little scared. But you have to just go with it you know to

Lean into the fear.

Let's go to the google translate. Google translate is amazing. It's really it's really cool.

And we had to give a shout out to Adam. Adam from the Poscast. You know you guys are friends way back and that's how we connected and I was really attracted to your shirt now.
So tell people about the shirt because the shirts that I just you know in high school which was years and years ago and this is probably this long before your time but it was like I used to wear these shirts called knickknicks.

Yeah yeah I know those.

And they were art shirts. And so that's that was my style in high school. Looks like it's like that it reminded me of that whole flashy and I love Miami. I love. You know I would go down to Miami I did a lot of work down there and spent time down in Miami and South Beach and and drink the small coffee kind of stuff.

Cupacito Yeah I have one Right here. I have a double

It's like good stuff. I love it.

KnickKnick's area cool, there like a really different version of these shirts. They're more like kind of like patchwork. This is called JAMS world and it's a cool story actually. So my wife found one of these shirts five or six years ago and became my instant Like, this is going to be my party shirt. So my barbecue shirt and it became that and then I was wearing it one day to a barbecue.
Of course if you guys know the name chef Gordon you name it like the biggest managers of artists in the world of music and also all the chefs. So I was happy to be at his birthday party in Miami which is a random occurrence in itself and I'm getting I'm getting a plate of ribs and it comes up behind me taps me on the shoulder and says hey is that Jam Shirt Yeah. How do you know that if my neighbor owns a company in Hawaii. What my whole closet was filled with like 90 of these and this is amazing there's more of these shirts. The guy is like thousands of them.
I'm like Well can I meet your neighbor. He's like Yeah just like email her. So I email the founder and I start to buy them on eBay actually they're really cheap on the older ones like 20 bucks the vintage. I owe a lot of vintage ones and I became my uniform. I was like this is this easy uniform I wear this with a pair of black pants and sneakers. That's what I wear every day of my life and it's become so easy to get dressed in the morning I just pick what's next and get dressed. I have over one hundred shirts so I can wear the same never the same shirt for three months.
So it's been wonderful and it's become my uniform and it's a whole lot of benefits. I will say people always stop me in the streets say hey my shirt. And then from that, you start the conversation and I need no more business card there's no more needed like this is enough a nice big idea to have someone say stop on the tracks. Yes, it works and you know I definitely pick out ones that are more me and for me, it's not just a random assortment. Sure it's like really good until like finding vintage ones that fit my profile. I'm kind of an artist as well. I'm on the side so I paint a lot of like clothes so I'll paint my sneaker

Oh very cool very cool. So you find, and it looks like. So you walk into a room and people already know who you are by your you know your profile and your look and feel.
You know that's kinda like my beard my hat you know with the glasses. You know it's like OK I got a signature look. And so it really for people that don't really realize that that makes an impact and makes a difference. It really does. So I applaud you, hats off, hats off today.

Our hats are off today. I was going to wear one man but it helps to stand out in some way that someone will remember you. And then you talk to somebody by then you really down the person's real genuine person. So some people do it for the wrong reasons. I think I've done it. I did it. I first started doing it just like this is a cool thing to do. And then my dad got sick. Like four months in and he lost his memory. This is a very weird turn that it took and didn't know who I was. They knew my shirts. Thankfully after a few months, his memory came back he had a weird little disease. That disease was those nerves, but his memory came back but he's like Oh Chris I know this guy. I'm like that was scary. He didn't know who anyone was. Yeah for a few weeks I guess I'm sure it's not going to be a thing and now he wears the shirts every day so he's become me and he thinks that he started it which is even funnier. I'm like Dad I kind of started this thing. He loves it. He like sits at his like retirement home and just like holds court and like everyone loves him. So I would recommend finding a uniform because I have a uniform.
It really can't hurt. There's no downside to it.

No and life is so funny because it's you know you don't know what twist or turn is going to take and you know especially when you're working in somebody's startups you know the startup community. There's so many amazing ideas that are being developed every single day. And you see more than many you know all the time and so has there been any technology or anything that you really like his like stopped you in your tracks and said, Wow this is interesting this is cool. I mean besides wherebyus, you know you've got a couple of other things that are going on and I know that you have a couple of other things you're like paying attention to. So you want to share those with us?

For sure. Yeah. So some of the companies I've chosen to advise for are ones that I love the products. So I find that's a really important thing if you're going to buy somebody you have to love they're doing. Realize this is this is innovative. This is good for humanity. My good friend Maxine started the thing called Karibu and for me, it's essential as a new dad. It's reading to your kids in a virtual environment so they use an iPad and they're reading and books as your grandma lives in Idaho and you live in Miami. It's a virtual interactive book on your iPod.
You both Regan together and you can turn pages together you can write on the book it's video is on the screen and it really helps the most living in the same place has a connection with.
With their grandchild or child on the road. I love it. I think it's super smart. I think that they're going to have all their business model it's really going to be a big hit. More of that's going to happen I believe right now. This wouldn't have happened 10 years ago. This is an amazing technology that this can happen

and it's pretty easy to get up get on and connect with and schedule it all it.

Super I love live video. I really do and I think more people should be doing it. I think it's underutilized actually. Yeah, I think it's maybe like stature it's not saturated at all.

It's not saturated at all.

You can just start talking to each other in real-life terms and not have a veil over themselves. Like, be yourself because that's the biggest thing I hate about seeing someone who's not being authentic with themselves and drives me crazy. I'm like that's a fake thing on the Internet. That's not real you like that's a staged photo. Yeah.

That's an Instagram famous view.

It really hurts like I'll post pictures that I've taken but not on purpose. Oh, it's the webpage I'll post this. That wasn't like stopping like let me get the right viewpoint of myself. Is this the right angle. I don't know but I love live video. I think it's great so commend you for doing it. And if you have some babies or children of you if your grandparents get Karibu it's a really great service. I'll send you a link to get for free if you want it. That's really cool. What else do I love? I've been loving this company called Juntos. They make sustainable issues out of Ecuador out of llama fur that they can

I used to raise llamas.

Did you.

Yeah. Yeah. I had a farm up in the northwest. Over 30 llamas at one point in time.

Oh wow. Amazing.

Yeah. We used to take the llamas to the retirement community walk through and they go down the beaches and do beachcombing with the llamas with packs

They are beautiful animals. They're beautiful animals. So I don't know the very soft-centered animals that you feel like you are compassionate people.

Oh yeah exactly.

It makes you a better person.

Whats this startup doing with the Llama fur.

Yeah, they're making shoes out of the shearings that they do every couple months. So they're normal shearing that they do not that they grow at just to have they're really comfortable.
I would recommend. It's like they say it's like wool right. Yeah it did. It doesn't smell like it lasts. Even in. It's very thin. It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Very comfortable. Yeah.

Post that in the comments so we go check it out. Yeah.

Another cool on that is here in Miami is called "shoot my travel" which is like on-demand photographers it's like if your traveling and you want someone like shoot your travel,
a genius idea like if you're in France who is going to take all the photos of your vacation you stop every 10 minutes and do this, it's annoying. Or if you are if you're an ad agency you go on to be a photographer that's a whole freelancer world that's not being utilized right now and you have to be for photographers.
Exactly. I need a lot of that's going to happen very soon and somehow capitalize that like videographers all the services that you see like Fiverr or Reda doing that right.
But it's not like really great. So then want more of a higher-end version of that.

Well, it's almost like a top towel. You know how they use it for programmers too. So it's like you have a vetted community you know when you say hey I'm going to book this commitment I'm going to get a certain level, of information back I'm in a certain level of content back. So that's fantastic. Anything you ask you when you want to mention or share.

Oh so many more I'm being profiled I forget these days I'm really into like not drinking alcohol these days. So I started devising this chemical proposition cocktail and it's really delicious high and made cocktails with no alcohol in them. So it's like having a Margarita or like having an old fashioned taste just like it but there's no alcohol in it. They confuse it with CBD hemp based so there are no mind-altering effects. There's a lot of mood-altering effects.

Right.

I think I think that's a huge market right now with the low alcohol beverage content stuff

So it's massive

and actually fun mixing it with booze it tastes amazing too.

So it's it's gonna take away from it.

It does not take away you can add a shot of tequila in Margarita and feel totally good about it and it's only 26 calories. It's really like how is it so good taste so good. Good for you.
I don't get it like you know it's a rebel and your vodka I put this in it because this is actually healthy for you all plant-based company out of San Francisco.
John's a really good operator working very hard in his eyes like launch and he's out there ethnical places already so it's like he's going after like this so the house is a Standard Hotel universe to start. Yeah but you kind of got to that. It's not it's cheap it's like six bucks at a bottle but if you're buying a beer for nine bucks on one of those places.

Oh heck yeah yeah whatever. That's fantastic.

[31:26] So I know I know you're busy and I really appreciate all the gratitude the world craves for being out here and sharing a few ideas with us,
and helping us understand a little bit more into the startup community and the advisor role that you're playing in and making sure that,
people have an idea they have emotion and they're doing something,
they can reach out and talk to you in a snack with you on LinkedIn and also you know as a new father to pop Chris here you know what's the words of wisdom that you want to leave us with today.

Before we take off

I says l a time I learned from my father in law I like a rich Dad poor Dad kind of like cool thing going on. So my father in law has been through a crazy life of like ups severe severe ups and downs, and he's taught me that life is a marathon not a sprint and you need to really take it in much smaller doses to get to the longevity that you want. So don't take every at every opportunity like go for it all. Just like you take him as much smaller bites. I it will eventually come back to you. It all comes in cycles. So when you run a marathon you kind of take your things and I do my first mile of this much Second Mile this much. It's more like a better cadence in life. So take that for what it is. Hopefully it makes sense.

Awesome. Thank you so much for being here Chris. And as you know everyone

Kindnessiscool
Smilesarefree
And you Enjoytheday
Thank you so much.