Introduction
Welcome to our latest blog post where we delve into the fascinating conversation from the Scroll Sessions Podcast, Episode #6. Our special guest, Brad Parker, joins hosts Dan Page and Shane Hickenlooper for an insightful discussion on entrepreneurship, the tech industry, and the journey to success.
About Brad Parker
Originally from Florida, Brad Parker moved to Utah about a decade ago, marking a significant shift from the boat business to the tech industry. His journey is one of innovation and determination, leading him to establish Private Auto, a platform revolutionizing private vehicle sales.
From Boats to Tech: A Journey of Innovation
Brad’s initial career in the boat business laid the foundation for his foray into the tech world. His venture in the yachting industry, particularly in tech solutions for medium to large yachts, was both challenging and rewarding. This experience ultimately led him to create Private Auto, akin to Venmo for private vehicle transactions, simplifying sales and purchases outside conventional banking hours.
Embracing the Cold and the Mountains
Moving from Florida to Utah was not just a geographical shift but also a lifestyle change for Brad. Adapting to the colder climate and moving away from the ocean was challenging, but the mountains of Utah grew on him, offering a beautiful and conducive environment for both personal and family growth.
The Leap from Family Business to Personal Passion
Brad shares a pivotal moment in his journey: the decision to not take over his family’s boat business. This choice stemmed from his growing passion for technology and the realization that there was more he wanted to achieve. This epiphany led him to start Yacht Closer, a tech company that revolutionized the boating industry by digitizing the sales process.
The Significance of Focus and Finish
One of the key takeaways from Brad’s story is the importance of focus and determination. He emphasizes the necessity of concentrating on one’s goals and persistently working towards them. His mantra, “Focus and Finish,” resonates throughout his journey, highlighting the importance of dedication in the path to success.
Conclusion
Brad Parker’s journey from the boat business in Florida to pioneering a tech company in Utah is a testament to the power of embracing change, pursuing passions, and staying focused. His story is not just about entrepreneurial success but also about the personal growth and insights gained along the way.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradaparker/
Podcast Transcript
:01
[Music]
0:10
Brad we’re excited to have you here on the podcast today my name is Dan and
0:16
I’ve also got Shane here today too uh Brad will you just give us a little bit
0:21
of an intro about who you are and what you do yeah so Brad Parker
0:27
the originally from Florida moved out here to Utah about 10 years ago but uh
0:33
I think my my initial career started in the boat business and then I got into Tech and I’ve been in tech for a little
0:39
while um was actually in Tech in the yachting industry we were like the LegalZoom and
0:44
DocuSign of uh you know medium to large yachts and uh so that was an interesting
0:49
journey and uh and then today uh run private auto so we make it we’re like the venmo of private vehicle sales we
0:56
make it easy to buy and sell cars privately do the bill of sale do any dollar transaction right in the parking
1:02
lot even on you know weekends and holidays and that’s huge I saw a a
1:08
little video that you guys had put out about how you can do transactions on weekends and holidays and I always buy
1:16
cars private party like I hate dealerships so every time I’ve done that
1:21
I’ve actually had a moment where it was a Friday afternoon I was trying to sell a car and I couldn’t I had to wait till
1:27
Monday buyer build and then I had to go find a new buyer and it was just kind of
1:32
a nightmare so when I watch that video I was like this is a really cool product yeah that makes total sense coming from
1:39
Florida to Utah though that uh it’s quite the jump the weather it took me
1:45
about four years to get used to the cold yeah uh it took a while I never thought I could live away from the ocean uh you
1:52
know I mean even being in a boat business I used to be like uh so we we would do customer trips I would even
1:58
take I used to take customers to the Bahamas for two three weeks in the summer yeah take them diving fishing you
2:05
know island hopping in their boats and then so I did anyway move into the mountains uh I never thought I could
2:11
live away from the ocean but the mountains have grown on me it’s it’s it’s beautiful out here it’s been great
2:16
for the family too yeah so you’re like a Florida native though like you’re born
2:22
and raised in Florida so my family a couple of my brothers still there my my parents still there yeah okay get back
2:29
fairly often to visit so what what made the jump to come to Utah then from where
2:35
you were at um so at that point in my life I was um
2:41
um so I started in in uh you know I was it was a family boat business and I was
2:46
running one of our dealerships in in Daytona Beach okay and and actually yeah
2:52
so this is this is one of those personal stories where at that point I started yacht closer which was my the tech
2:59
company um and um that whole transition right there
3:07
um my father actually expected me to take over the family business I kind of realized through this journey that
3:14
um it wasn’t for me yeah there’s more out there I wasn’t passionate about it you know it was a grind you know the
3:19
retail grind and and we did well uh but it was a grind and I kind of realized this wasn’t the the job that I wanted
3:26
for my family and it and at that time I was kind of dabbling with software and um anyway kind of fast forward a little
3:32
bit um decided to uh really jump in you know both feet into a software business and
3:40
just take a risk starting my my own Venture um but um you know really the move to to
3:46
Utah was one of those ones that just didn’t make sense yeah um I had already got some investment uh into the yachting
3:53
business uh we had already started you know growing and Utah’s a landlocked
3:58
state first of all so you’re in the Boating business you think you need to be kind of close
4:04
to the ocean no I I mean honestly I think you know through my journey I think you
4:10
know two of the pillars for me has been um and I think everybody needs something they need some kind of rock to hold on
4:16
to for me it’s been Faith and family those are the two that I think give me the drive to get through anything in
4:22
life and and I think the the transition from Florida to Utah was one of those decisions that it did not make sense on
4:28
the surface yeah um but we felt uh that it was the right thing for the family uh my wife and I
4:36
and even our kids three little kids at the time felt that that was what we were supposed to do even though it didn’t
4:41
really make sense um I even had investors that were pretty upset like hey we just invested in this
4:48
company for the yachting industry you’re going and you’re moving to Utah yeah it makes no sense um and so but anyway the the story
4:55
played out well so wow it still all worked out so in yachting the software
5:01
company that you owned was pretty much DocuSign and bill of sale for yeah right
5:08
that’s right yeah and financing yeah yeah so it was which was kind of Preparatory to get me to what we were
5:14
able to do today but um yeah so it was like a um prior to this that whole
5:19
industry was uh paper print scan and fax so you know in bigger Yachts sell like
5:25
real estate and so it’s you know and there’s like broker in the middle and there’s uh all a different series of
5:31
contracts offer agreements listing agreements acceptances yeah um but it was all paper print scanning
5:37
facts so we we basically brought it all you know to the cloud and then bolted on
5:43
a bunch of you know workflow and and pieces to it and then yeah we eventually had Finance Insurance warranty and we
5:50
had a title agency where we did all the registrations on the boats and Yachts yeah so yeah especially I think for uh
5:57
High net worth individuals that you were dealing with I think probably they appreciated the the ease of transaction
6:04
at that point I’m sure kind of coming in and disrupting at least that space just
6:10
a little bit Yeah Yeah well I mean it’s and I think this was another lesson for me I think it was um I realized that
6:16
most of the best ideas are within five feet of your daily routine so that whole business model was so I used to desk the
6:23
deals at the the dealership and then I I helped start a a yacht brokerage business for our our family business
6:31
but it was it was the biggest pain point at my desk you know doing the dealership deals there was some software for that
6:37
even you know may not have been great but there was software for that but there was nothing for this segment of the industry
6:44
um and it in it and it was the biggest pain point for my day desk in the deals and doing all the
6:50
paperwork um so anyway that that’s that’s where there was um it was a pain Point within
6:56
five feet of my desk every day and you just knew hey there’s got to be a better way to do this yeah that’s right yeah
7:03
that’s right well and so I think selfishly I started the business like I was like I gotta figure this out I mean
7:09
I started out with like 20 PDFs to talk to each other and like you know all kinds of little tools just to kind of
7:16
like try to accelerate it then I was like oh man I need to get some developers on this like we got to create something and then and then as I looked
7:22
around the industry you know there was nothing and I was like oh wait a minute maybe other people need this yeah there
7:28
was no fancy business plan there was no market research I was just solving my own problem yeah sometimes like you said
7:35
like it’s within five feet of your own uh you know your own area that you’re in or your own workspace and that’s where
7:41
those best ideas come from because you’re solving a problem for yourself and hopefully that also means other
7:47
people have the problem and then you just discovered that hey like there’s really nothing else out there like this
7:52
let’s go for it I feel like it takes a certain type of person though to want to
7:58
do to look outside the box like that even though it is right in front of our faces and usually it comes from a place
8:05
of I don’t want to do the same thing over and over and over again for the rest of my life at least I know that’s
8:11
how it was for me I just thought I still get uh critiqued for being like man why do you turn everything into a
8:18
business new business opportunity I know I know better than most people about your ideas so I can testify to that but
8:26
I think that may speak to your situation of uh you know you were working for your
8:31
dad’s dealership is that yeah how many dealerships were there under that umbrella we had two locations one in
8:37
Orlando one in Daytona Beach and you ran one one of them right yeah so the goal
8:42
was or your dad’s goal was for you to take over that dealership that both dealerships the whole business yeah
8:48
family business so what was it I mean that’s a setup for a great uh career
8:54
right what was it that pulled you away from that or wanted to pull you away from that that’s a good question I I
9:00
really became so passionate about technology I mean that was a time I mean not now I’m going back to like 2006 2007
9:07
it you know even when like apps on the App Store yeah it was just starting coming out it was like back when
9:13
everybody was like a new app came out like everybody was on it checking it out yeah
9:19
um and and so I think I became fascinated with with technology um and I think in a way too within
9:27
um you know I I consider myself more of like an entrepreneur you know when I was
9:33
there it was like always finding ways to like why do we do it that way especially in a better family dealership where like
9:39
you you have a lot of the same people they’ve been doing it the same way for you know 20 30 years and they’re afraid to offend each other because it’s their
9:46
family you know and so especially when I had and I give a lot of credit to my dad I
9:51
mean I think uh if if I was in his place would I have put as much trust as he did
9:56
in me and I’m like gosh like I I love him for that it’s it’s amazing how much
10:02
trust he put in me to run that dealership at I think I was 28 when I
10:07
took over that dealership um those are hard-hitting people that you work with yeah yeah yeah and dealing
10:14
with a lot of money requires do that I mean like you know I give him credit too because like I had to go work somewhere else for two years before working for
10:20
the family business and even when I came back to work for the family business I was just in sales and it was 90 plus
10:27
percent uh commission so you had to you keep my pay was no different than
10:34
anybody else right to sell um and so fortunately I did pretty well with that proved myself
10:41
um and so I earned a lot of respect from the team you know to even go into that role yeah
10:46
um but um but I think it was uh always the drive to wait a minute there’s got to be a way better way like why do we do
10:53
it that way some days I would go camp out in the parts department and just watch like watch paper flow watch phone
11:00
calls watch what they do after stuff and it’s like whoa like wait a minute why do we do it that way yeah there’s got to be
11:06
a better way yeah for sure well that’s interesting and then really I think the the the best ideas come from 100
11:14
watching right like just experiencing what’s going on in the business and and
11:20
other people’s businesses and then figuring out ways to just solve that and I think it looks it seems like the
11:26
entrepreneurship within your own you know your own families company like led to everything else and helped you
11:32
explore you know every aspect of what you were going to turn what eventually came private auto you
11:38
know into yeah that’s awesome so when it comes to uh this initial technology that you built
11:45
the software that you built and got investment in you grew that for how many years were you working on that we we
11:52
went we started building it in like 2010 made some mistakes you know we we you know one step forward two step back I
11:59
mean all that stuff that you know people go through and they try to start a business especially in software and uh
12:05
all developers are the best and you don’t know they’re not the best until you’ve spent a lot of money or wasted a lot of time oh man that’s good that’s
12:12
good that’s a good one-liner that’s very very true so very true uh there may be some that are offended by that but that
12:18
that’s just the way and it’s hard you know someone has an idea and they want to get a developer but anyway yeah so
12:26
um I forget yeah no we were just asking like so you started you started this uh
12:32
boat kind of financing company got into the uh the software piece of your
12:38
business 2010 yeah so we started building in 2010 we went live in 2012. okay okay so two
12:44
years you got investment in your first before that I honestly really only got a couple couple checks
12:50
um my main investor was somebody that I sold a bunch of boats to yeah you’re networking with probably all of your
12:56
investors yeah you’re selling so you got a really good Network which was a cool you know experience in of itself it’s um
13:03
and I didn’t know any I didn’t I never like here in here in like Silicon slopes it’s
13:09
like you’ve got all the proper pitch decks and fundraising it’s like I didn’t know any of that stuff yeah you know but
13:16
you didn’t know people I just invited them to go like have some tacos at some hole in the wall Mexican restaurant and
13:21
and just you know just share the idea with no no pitch no presentation no
13:27
nothing and uh and at the end of the day he’s just like I like it let’s do it
13:33
that’s awesome and epic and there we win you know um and yeah he was our main investor and
13:40
and off we went and and really that and there was a couple other checks that we got
13:45
um but um yeah we bootstrapped the business um and and it was one of those where
13:51
yeah I know I was Road Warrior I mean I you know I think the first 400 accounts
13:56
I signed up personally wow um and just hitting East Coast West Coast Eastern Seaboard you know hitting all the
14:03
brokerage companies and it was uh it was a grind so yeah to talk a little bit about Yacht Sales and how that’s
14:10
prepared you to get to where you are today because closing those first 400 deals and working with dealerships
14:18
primarily is that Who You’d approach Brokers the Brokers Brokers because they’re the ones with both ends these
14:24
are tough people right like I would assume that a broker or somebody in the yacht industry or boating industry uh
14:32
would not be hard to work with but hard to convince
14:38
um so was coming from that industry being a 28 year old doing sales for uh
14:45
your dad’s Yacht company or boat company was that boats yeah more pleasure boats and pleasure boats yeah so what did you
14:51
learn about cells along the way that you think made you successful at closing those first 400 deals
14:59
um well a couple of things I think uh I even managing the dealership and managing people I I became fascinated
15:05
with like personality profiles um and understanding personalities
15:10
um I’m still learning that today and still trying to understand people better and learn how I can work with people uh
15:17
better but I think that was that was that was one of the main contributors um the second one for that industry it
15:24
is such a tight-knit niche industry yeah um had I not had I been some software
15:30
company that came flying in and and was like hey I got some new solution for this industry heck no you’re not gonna
15:37
you know get any traction with some of these Brokers um but fortunately you know our family
15:43
name and being in the business and being in Florida uh I I’ve done a bunch of deals with a lot of these bigger
15:49
brokerage houses it was a game of strategy in the beginning it’s you know there’s some people that I knew where I
15:55
could just call them up instantly and be like hey will you check this out for me and give me some feedback yeah come on down you know and then and then I knew
16:02
if like okay if I get you three on board then I can get you three if I get you then I can get you six it was all about
16:09
who you knew oh that’s right and then when you go to the next one it’s like oh did you hear oh yeah yeah so and so yeah
16:14
they jumped on board last month and oh yeah so and so and then I just started name dropping and then there and then because then it’s a it’s a game of like
16:21
oh well so-and-so’s doing that I better do it you know yeah of course so that’s kind of how I got the initial momentum
16:27
oh that’s awesome so yeah 400 classic sales classic sales guy classic sales
16:33
guy that’s the pest control guy that comes around United but I think this was more well here’s the other difference
16:39
too I was an industry Insider yeah you already knew the business so it wasn’t I was I wasn’t coming in blowing smoke on
16:46
anybody yeah no and they got that right away they knew that I understood their business I understood their pain points
16:53
and I think that’s the difference I mean sometimes I’ve helped out with some of the entrepreneur groups that like the
16:58
college is out here and whenever someone’s like you know I’ve got this great idea for this like industry way
17:04
over here that I have never worked in I have no like Insider knowledge with I have never personally felt the pains in
17:11
it it’s like um that’s going to be tough go work in the industry and keep working on your idea yeah you know that’s very
17:18
similar I mean with when we started doing white label it’s why we did white label is because we understood the pain
17:24
points like we totally knew it and it made it so much easier easier to sell it yeah and to deliver because we you could
17:31
touch on those exact things that were gonna make a difference yeah connect with your audience yeah yeah it was very
17:37
easy for us to approach our leads and say we know that you struggle with this
17:42
because we used to spend thousands and thousands a month with agencies and get poor results and we hated every second
17:49
of it it was never transparent you know we learned that same thing with you in the Boating industry of I know that it’s
17:56
all facts and paper phone calls and that I’m sitting there watching all day back
18:01
and forth these papers move and that helps a lot so really I think uh
18:07
something very valuable from that is once you were able to get the seat a
18:13
seat at the table you brought immediate value and they understood that you had something of value right that was kind
18:20
of the concept you just knew you the first step was to get in front of their face yeah and then and it takes years of
18:27
experience to gain that confidence I I think right I guess how do you feel like you gain that confidence to be able to
18:34
pitch these ideas to these people and I guess make a difference I mean it’s it’s
18:39
everything it’s an evolution of like just your journey so had I not you know had a chance to you know run a
18:45
dealership or be you know ingrained in the business know the business know the brokerage side know the retail side
18:52
um there’s no way I’d be able to you know even I wouldn’t even thought to even start a software company like that
18:58
yeah you know having not immersed myself in that industry and really understood
19:03
the pain points and then to be able to talk to those customers having gone through those pain points myself
19:09
I can can uh you know instantly relate and connect with them did you ever have people in the software
19:16
industry because as you started to grow this did you ever have people in the software industry almost take a similar
19:22
uh approach to you saying hey man like you came from boats like don’t try and
19:28
build this we we could build something better like sticking stay in your lane did that ever happen and as far as
19:35
people yeah any big people coming in in private auto or in software in general say like hey
19:42
don’t try and jump in our category no I mean no no that hasn’t happened I I think there’s probably people that that
19:48
maybe think that but um no um but I think that’s because of the
19:55
background with what we did I think it gave us a unique perspective to do something different in the Auto industry
20:01
yeah that they never saw yeah because most of the companies trying to do what we do right now were designed by car
20:10
people and they set up designed by dealerships they’re designed by dealerships and
20:16
really the uh you know the the services going after the private sale all they
20:21
are just set up like a traditional F and I office and there’s people behind the scenes moving money doing paperwork but
20:28
you can’t scale that in a 8-10 million you know unit plus volume uh private
20:34
sell market so let’s get into that a little bit because so my background I used to work for ksl.com before starting
20:42
this I I sell their desert digital media stuff uh yeah I worked in advertising in
20:48
classifieds and Rec vehicle but I didn’t work in cars cars was this huge
20:54
Department you know there was a lot of good there was a lot of bad they came through it so I’m interested explain
21:01
because we got a lot of people from Utah that will listen to this explain the difference between private auto and KSL
21:08
cars because there are a few very specific things that you guys do differently yeah so KSL and and dozens
21:15
of other out there all they do is advertise yeah they put they put pictures on a website
21:21
um and it’s a way for buyers to say hello that’s it there’s no more there’s no more functionality beyond that you know
21:28
private auto is the first company that you can actually list you can negotiate with a with it’s basically everything
21:35
after that so when you go to meet up with that person to verify their identity and make sure you’re not
21:41
dealing with scammers um and then you can actually do the bill of sale right on your phone and the I
21:48
mean the the significant piece that we created we’re more of a fintech you know the we look like a Marketplace on the
21:55
the surface yeah but we are more of a fintech um because technically we’re probably
22:01
the only company that I can think of right now that I could go meet you on a Saturday evening at 5 PM or something
22:06
and and do a deal for 10 20 50 100 000 on whatever car in the parking lot and
22:13
you legally take custody of those funds in that very second and who’s processing that loan is it you guys that process
22:20
the loan so two different things so there’s just a the transfer if I have the money and I want to buy you a car
22:26
cash yeah it’s right it’s just to be able to transfer those funds you can’t do that today outside of banking hours
22:32
yeah even during banking hours I I so if I would call the threshold Maybe
22:39
um our sweet spot would be everything over ten thousand dollars you know if you’re buying something for other under 10 grand or I’m sorry under five grand
22:46
use cash app use venmo use a payment app fine yeah yeah um some people may bring cash cash to
22:52
the table but even that’s not very safe you know after maybe 10 grand yeah that’s right it’s not safe for buyer or
22:59
seller to you know roll up with a bunch of cash like that um but it’s at like 10 grand and above
23:05
that’s when it’s like all right all right well what do we do now like okay we go go to your bank and we go meet up
23:11
or yeah you know even today cashiers checks there’s a lot of fraud with that yep um and so I mean going back to pain
23:19
Point within five feet it was uh After exiting my uh the the the the yachting
23:25
software company um I was buying a car for my son I bought a 2007 uh Toyota FJ Cruiser I met the guys
23:37
he was stoked yeah I’m sure and met the guy in like a Smith parking lot at uh it
23:43
was like eight or nine p.m at night I’ve lived this same experience so many times I’ve sold my car the same way and it was
23:50
I think it was like 14 Grand you know but it was like okay we wanted it oh cool we did a little test drive in the
23:55
parking lot there and then it was just like okay well then we had to like kind of anyway didn’t work to meet the next
24:01
day and then we had to wait till the following anyway to go meet up at the bank and then kind of do the transfer
24:06
right at the bank yeah and that’s where it was like okay knowing what I know now from what we did before and workflows
24:13
transactions there’s got to be a better way yeah if I want what you have and you have title in
24:19
hand I want to buy it right now you can take an Uber home I’m gonna take your car and I’m out yeah total awesome
24:25
that’s what you can do at private office yeah so cool yeah if they don’t have the
24:31
title in hand do things get trickier if they have a loan on the car yeah so we don’t solve for that we do solve one
24:37
scenario of that right now um the good news within the private sale Market you know if you kind of look at
24:42
the different layers there’s probably about eight to ten million Private Sales that happen a year within that like a a
24:49
good chunk of those people do have title in hand even as you look at classic cars cars that you know people typically have
24:56
title in hand and a lot of those are cash deals yeah um where you you may not be financing some of those older cars
25:02
that are over 10 years old or something like that um so there’s like millions of cars where okay like we have an instant
25:09
solution for it right out of the gate um we already have financing that we’re doing behind the scenes we haven’t
25:15
started marketing the that yet but we’re going to revolutionize you know how you even finance a uh a privately purchased
25:22
car but in that scenario our banking partner will pay off the loan send the
25:27
proceeds to the bank to get access to the title and then any proceeds would go to the seller directly in that
25:34
transaction oh wow that’s pretty cool and that yeah as I say that that’s the biggest pain point for I think most
25:40
people for at least that have a loan out on the vehicle you know yeah I think uh
25:45
one thing that I learned working at ksl.com was uh
25:51
they had a lot of problems in the car space one would be that and I had a
25:56
friend have this issue just this past week he’s selling his car on KSL right now and they he gets a lot of dealers
26:04
that message him and offer him uh under value for his car and that was something
26:11
that I thought was really interesting about private auto is you have vetted sellers and buyers so I know that if I
26:18
go and post there I’m not gonna have dealerships reaching out to me and off lowballing me on my car right yeah I
26:24
mean hey could a dealer go in under a personal name or whatever and and reach out to you they could you know but um we
26:31
do uh deter and get rid of the scammers out of the gate I mean yeah it sounds like you and I both had experiences so
26:38
every time I put a car on a Marketplace or you know like KSL it’s like the first five people that reach out to me are
26:44
scammers yeah you know and the thing that I hated about that too was like ah they got my cell phone number it’s like
26:50
it always bugged me yeah and that’s another thing about private auto you don’t share your personal contact
26:55
information with anybody um and so you’re you’re communicating through the app
27:01
um and you don’t have to share any of that with the other party how did the marketing approach uh come up for
27:07
private auto what because you started this company based off of this idea and actually before that question
27:14
um how did you get this going like you had this idea for private auto you were still doing uh your yacht business right
27:22
you’re you’re no I exited uh well we got acquired in 2017. okay um and then I
27:27
stayed on board with the company that acquired us through early 2020. okay
27:35
um and then that’s when you know I exited there and then um and then yeah so but I’ve been I’ve been
27:41
thinking about the private sale for quite a bit yeah um and uh always been on my mind and it
27:46
was after I bought you know the car for my son then it was just like then it was real again it was like oh my gosh it’s
27:52
time there’s got to be a way to to solve this so in the beginning I kind of flew solo for the first year
27:58
um because are you a developer yourself you know oh no no no no I don’t know a thing I’m the idea guy I’m the guy that
28:05
frustrates the developers yeah yeah for sure it’s a developers nightmare so you flew
28:12
solo on this idea though and how did you get this idea going so long well I think it was more exploratory you know is what
28:19
I was doing in the beginning because I I hired a Dev shop and and because the the the piece about the like the money
28:26
movement none nothing else mattered until we solved the piece about the money movement it was at that time too I
28:32
looked around like why has no one else done this why has it and I went and like investigated like how does venmo work
28:38
what what is the nuts and behind the scenes like how does the money move what are the regulations what are the red
28:43
tape and so I kind of like did a deep dive through all that stuff and then I like Anyway long story short I came to
28:50
the conclusion that oh wait a minute I think I think I figured out a way how this has to work
28:56
um and it would require a custom banking integration with a Traditional Bank yeah
29:01
um and so anyway kind of hired a Dev shop to to really start focusing on that
29:07
because if we couldn’t really develop that technology then nothing else mattered because everything else is nice
29:13
to have IDE certification yeah it was just like another Marketplace really that’s right the finance stuff made you
29:20
stand apart yeah yeah no just the the movement of money being able to move High dollars instantly any day anytime
29:29
um you know which which was the the hard part so you at this point you were still
29:35
uh you were kind of doing whatever you wanted right exploring your next option or were you still on board no I was I
29:42
was I was now kind of just like looking for the next in limbo in between yeah yeah so I was had a lot of time that’s
29:49
when the best ideas well I think another thing too I I’m
29:55
guilty of dabbling in uh crypto quite a bit too I’m a little bit of a crypto nut on the side and so I think understanding
30:02
how blockchain works and how movement of money there is so instant so fast yeah
30:08
and and there’s uh enough Security in place where it can be safe that’s what
30:13
frustrated me about the traditional USD rails where that doesn’t exist in USD in
30:19
time it will exist everything will be on the blockchain yeah um but but right now it’s not so that there was a void in
30:28
like doing deals in USD instant on the spot and I saw something do you accept
30:36
cryptocurrency on your platform yeah so um it doesn’t actually go through our
30:41
platform it’s more in that case it’s more aligning buyer and seller interest so if I’m a seller and I say yeah you
30:48
like here’s my car I’ll take private auto pay I’ll take you know Bitcoin uh or whatever and if a
30:55
buyer comes along is like oh wait a minute yeah no I’ll do Bitcoin then then we can just use our normal wallets to
31:02
just do that transaction you would still use private auto to negotiate you know confirm the deal the VIN you know the
31:08
price you’d sign the bill of sale but then when it gets to the payment piece because we both elected you know to like
31:16
oh we’re just going to do this you know Bitcoin then it’ll prompt both of us like hey go ahead and use your wallets
31:22
and do that right now um because you can also choose to do like split payment you could say like
31:29
hey you know we’re going to use 80 private auto pay but then not all the last thousand bucks like hey I’ll just
31:34
do it in Bitcoin or whatever and so you can choose to do that and it’ll it’ll trigger private auto pay for the 80
31:40
percent and then it’ll say okay hey you guys do the remaining balance and then confirm when you’re done that’s really
31:47
really cool how I mean how did you uh I guess go to market with this did
31:53
you release an MVP style product first like in in 2020 in 2021 or did you just
32:01
wait to have like the full thing developed and then launched it um
32:06
well two two well two things maybe to address your marketing question so I’m glad I listened to somebody a lot
32:12
smarter than me um that’s our goal with this and I started a Content plan back almost when
32:20
the idea started very cool we started having you know writers uh develop content and just laser focus and I had
32:28
uh you know just um some SEO experts go and like analyze
32:33
long tail keywords and and that there was all these like long tail keywords that the big players weren’t focused on
32:39
and so we just laser focused on those like how to sell my car in Utah privately how to buy a car from a
32:46
private seller how to transfer money in a private sale um so we just started building a castle a
32:53
really cool all these long tail keywords and that just became a process that that you know we’d pump out I don’t know 10
33:00
to 20 articles a month we were pretty heavy on it uh in the beginning
33:05
um so once again hoping that this whole product is going to work yeah for sure like covering the product in parallel
33:11
and then I think once we got the product to um once there was really a light at the end of the tunnel and I really and
33:17
it was at the point where oh my gosh I need some help um so then it was uh all right let’s bring the squad back together yeah
33:24
um so my my CTO who worked with me before he came on board um uh another uh you know my current CPO
33:33
she worked with me you know before um and and there’s a few other people on the team that worked with me before that
33:39
we eventually kind of came back together and and then that’s really cool and I mean and you’ve
33:46
had some I think Shane and I were just watching some of those videos that you have on your website and on LinkedIn and
33:53
stuff how has I guess video become an important piece to Market uh private
33:58
auto yeah the video has been fun um so we’ve we’ve embraced video quite a
34:03
bit and we’ve pumped out a lot of videos yeah um not all of them have been on LinkedIn but a lot of them are for our paid uh
34:10
you know social channels and so whether it be Instagram or Facebook or if you’ve done a little bit of Tick Tock but our
34:16
main you know uh success has been in Facebook Instagram
34:21
um but um yeah the videos have been great uh to really bring to life the pain points for sure and to try to
34:28
resonate with like you know just the Real Pain points that people deal with and they’re like oh yeah like like if we
34:34
can spark that emotion it’s like success yeah oh yeah totally oh yeah like I feel like I would need that or I needed that
34:40
like a month ago and now I’ll remember next time yeah you know to you to use private auto I thought I saw a video you
34:46
did you were actually in the car it was probably like a friend of yours or something and you lose a Porsche you’re
34:53
literally going through the whole process with him and you were saying I just thought it was really cool I was
34:58
like you’re sharing doing the actual app obviously at the same time that you’re doing the transaction it was a cool way
35:04
to just see it in use I immediately understood what you were doing yeah that was actually the first deal and that was
35:10
uh and so that was a legit oh cool that was a legit Real Deal oh that was awesome and so I started that one on
35:16
link I actually I just solicited it on on LinkedIn okay I I started there saying like hey we want to test out you
35:23
know I want to be the first one to test out our software who has something you know to buy yet to sell and uh and and
35:30
Alex uh who responded he had that sweet 911 uh Carrera did you buy it yeah yeah
35:37
no that was a that was a real deal right there wow that’s awesome it was like one of
35:42
those deals too where it was like the true MVP of the product and for sure and I don’t know like the real behind the
35:48
scenes of a software company it’s like oh man you’re scrambling you’re like everyone’s like hoping it like hoping
35:54
there’s no bugs and it’s like oh like hoping it works in the back
35:59
no I mean we do a lot of there’s been lots of testing but still it’s like that first real deal but no it was uh you
36:06
know that was a legit deal and a high dollar deal it was in the uh one of the parking lots up there and uh um you know
36:13
the Traverse Mountain so oh my gosh see that’s so cool it’s cool that it was in a parking lot it happened that fast too
36:20
yeah I was gonna mention and that it was you that that was actually you that bought it yeah I drove you for like four
36:25
or five months yeah that’s totally epic I was like if you’re not running that as an ad you should yeah because it’s cool
36:32
that’s a really cool story we had we had watched some of the explainer videos too and when you were bringing up that video
36:38
I thought that first video Even though what was that filmed on a phone or was
36:44
it filmed on an actual camera yeah no no uh uh Hemi our our uh our our our our video guy he’s he’s awesome by the way
36:51
he was literally balled up in the background yeah he was balled up back there or just
36:59
like getting the shot but that’s really cool it just makes me think high production isn’t always necessary for
37:07
some of the best content that we get right people just want real raw like authentic stuff I mean they want to
37:14
understand how the product works and these explainer videos are very helpful and you have the actor and the actress
37:19
there that do a great job yeah but I thought that main video that for and now
37:25
to know that that was you buying it just is phenomenal we’re gonna link that in the show notes so that’ll be really cool
37:30
I love that just amazing what I was gonna say part of that too wasn’t really like for the show of the vehicle but it
37:37
was more um I think the point of me picking that vehicle was that deal was impossible
37:42
before private auto a hundred percent that deal was impossible you don’t show up in a parking lot and decide to buy
37:49
something at that price tag yeah in the moment I mean that’s like you you can’t
37:55
call your bank and say hey can you just instantly wire money to so and so at this point or and here’s their in you
38:00
can’t do that no yeah you can’t you can’t buy something like that but now you can with private auto and that’s
38:05
amazing I feel like there’s use cases even outside of Auto for this in the long term I don’t know if you guys have
38:11
considered ever expanding in that direction what’s next for private auto you’ve
38:16
added in this Finance piece is there any things that you’re seeking out in the future I think from uh from a matter of focus
38:26
we’ll be focused on auto out of the gate and even down down the road a little bit more
38:31
um but we’ll be all Title vehicles ATV RV motorcycle we’re going to go back into boats yeah
38:37
um and uh yeah so we’ll hit all those verticals very cool being in the rec vehicle space I mean especially in Utah
38:45
it’s a huge deal I mean in the Mountain West yeah wreck vehicles I think probably any in Florida too a bit big
38:53
wreck Vehicle area same with the Midwest I guess but in the United States wreck
38:58
vehicles are a huge deal sold privately yeah most of those are sold privately
39:03
yeah that that’s me so with private auto how did you guys acquire your first 100
39:09
customers versus your next thousand
39:14
um so really um that’s when it was
39:19
um interesting to see how the content strategy in an SEO strategy started
39:25
playing out at the right time um so I mean anyway we we started
39:31
building organic traffic I think we were already at around maybe 15 20 000 uh you know visitors to
39:39
our site a month was it all blog at the time all blog all blog you just hadn’t released the product yet no no we had
39:45
like a website really general info but no no product was live so I think maybe maybe we’re 15 to 20
39:51
000 unique visitors at that point so we we were already building an audience before we had a product and I think
39:58
that’s one of the mistakes a lot of companies make today they they kind of like put all this effort into building a product and going live and then they
40:04
just start taking you know paid media I mean it’s like taking a bag of cash and
40:10
chucking it on a fire you get a little lift but then it’s gone it’s gone it’s just gone instantly and so you know then
40:18
then we brought in the paid media strategy so we kind of created a foundation created a base of of some
40:24
organic traffic uh and we continued the the efforts that we did there and we continued to this day
40:30
um but now you strategically start seeing what works what doesn’t what people are what people like what content
40:37
then we wrap our paid media strategy around the knowledge that we already have based on how people are interacting
40:44
with our content and instead of cash on the fire it becomes gas that’s right that’s right and then yeah I mean yeah
40:51
yeah obviously you need to use do the the paid media strategy and do the paid search paid social
40:56
um but now we we we have a Clear Vision as to where that money needs to be
41:01
directed based on what we’ve already learned from the people visiting and and consuming our content that’s really
41:08
really interesting and I mean we’ve seen that we’ve seen it play out with a lot of our clients that have built like a
41:13
massive organic following and then just launch products that Their audience wants yeah like it works every single
41:19
time like with without fail um and I think it’s it’s a good a really
41:25
good lesson and it’s interesting because you know scroll we’ve built our our base
41:30
unpaid and now we’re jumping into or like organic and building our own brand right so we’ve kind of done the opposite
41:37
but we’ve seen you know it works both ways there’s two ways to go about it but I think there’s a lot of value by
41:44
starting with that organic base yeah because you learn so much without burning as much cash yes because that’s
41:52
the other thing like like today I think you know right now I think we’re at about maybe 80 000 visitors a month just
41:58
from our organic uh content that’s amazing and and then if you just you know what’s the equivalent of that and
42:05
paid a lot a lot a lot of money depending on where you’re thousands of dollars well no you I mean you could be
42:11
that could cost you forty fifty Grand you know to generate that same traffic and paid what startup can afford that
42:17
you know what’s that gonna what’s that gonna do to your your your burn rate your Runway yeah and and so I think it’s
42:24
key to survival um really having a strategic content plan with any business and now content
42:32
has become so much easier too like my wife launched a business and she used to
42:38
have me write all of her essays in college and I didn’t graduate from college
42:44
um because she just can’t get six pages out in a decent an amount of time it’s
42:50
really hard for her so chat GPT comes out yeah and she can say now I can write
42:56
content and she literally uses it the way I believe it should be used which is I want this to have my voice but I need
43:04
help getting enhancing yeah right 100 so so cool to hear that and
43:11
you’re the second person much smarter than me to tell me that that approach is
43:17
a good approach in this week we’ve we had Jay Davis on and yeah he’s the
43:22
founder of pillowcube and creatively and he brought up the same thing that building that content base specifically
43:29
newsletter blog yeah uh up front can provide so much value so I think that
43:34
that’s so profound because when we started scroll we were just two dumb kids and I mean he was smart we’re still
43:41
kind of two dumb kids but he was smart we were one dumb kid one smart kid but
43:46
he uh and we didn’t know what we we were doing so we just called a bunch of
43:52
people out of you know Hometown values magazines have you seen those Val packs
43:57
oh yeah yeah we just started calling those people and we were like hey how’s this working for you basically and we
44:04
obviously were testing the market we really wanted to say like is this working for you well we’ve got a better
44:09
solution it’s digital marketing let’s get you out of the mailer so let’s get you into stuff that’s actually trackable
44:15
yeah but we would have done it completely different if we were to start today I mean we threw hundreds of
44:21
thousands of dollars at paid media and it has turned into good results for us but man if we would have uh built
44:29
backwards and said hey let’s build with this organic content plan yeah first
44:34
we’d be leaps and mountains ahead of where we are so I think that’s great advice to young entrepreneurs and just
44:39
people trying to start something and don’t make the mistake like we toyed around with Organic and the idea of it
44:45
for a very long time and just never did it yeah you know we just never did it hence this podcast that’s why we’re
44:52
doing it now in it and it’s uh it’s it’s harder than you think it is as you
44:57
already know yep um you know it’s sometimes with
45:03
um I don’t know like sometimes like I immerse myself at the beginning of every new like Department you know so for
45:09
example content um really trying to more so to learn it understand it I want to understand what
45:16
like what’s happening what should happen um and then eventually you get the right people to to fill in and really take
45:22
over and run it um but especially with the content like I’m just so grateful for you know
45:28
learning from other people and and and and where if if I did it myself I would
45:33
have been like oh let’s go after like used car for sale like you know these big monster key names that’s right but then it’s like no no no
45:41
no no go way down here go after the ones that are only generating like 200 500
45:47
you know searches a month and go after like hundreds of those
45:53
um and and then you like build up a castle and then once you like you’re an authority on the topic then you go after
46:00
their big key names yeah and you actually get those key names fast yeah once you already have that that
46:05
Authority so it’s like it’s cool now to see it actually play out because like
46:11
there’s new stuff that we inject into the you know on Google today that it’s only a matter of weeks and it’s like
46:17
it’s fast yeah to compete against and are you Nationwide right now yeah did
46:23
you start in a certain geographical area to test it or did you yeah yes and no I mean we in terms of a mark
46:31
marketing yes we started just in Utah from a marketing person so all the blog content was targeted towards like no
46:37
Blog blog content you know kind of from from day one we like like had a plan like the amount of
46:45
content that we would have per state and replicated it yeah that was cool all of them and then have a number of kind of
46:51
like National Universal you know pieces that aren’t you know state-specific yeah
46:56
we’re SEO guys I get I get that I get the silo I know it was silent everything
47:02
off the way you explain it I’m like you sound like 20 calls we’ve had with our bigger customers where we say this is
47:08
the approach and you’re saying that exact approach so it’s so cool to hear that that’s worked so well for you yeah
47:13
we have a couple food bloggers that we work with and it’s the same situation right if they go take a certain long
47:20
tail keyword uh for example like 50 best birthday cake designs yeah yeah those
47:25
has 20 000 searches and yeah nobody’s focusing on it because they all want like birthday birthday cake designs you
47:33
know or whatever so yeah it’s very I mean we’ve done the same thing with six sister stuff is probably the one you’re
47:39
thinking about but now you know they rank for hundreds of thousands of keywords get you know a couple million
47:46
hits a month and now we’re going after the big boys we’re going after you know
47:52
uh you know all kitchens amazing some of these are bigger you know people that get 50 million plus searches a month
47:58
because they only go after that the head head turns but anyways um so first couple hundred customers
48:05
then came from all the organic blogs that you guys did yeah yeah and I think some of the the LinkedIn stuff that we
48:11
did did yeah like a little bit you know it got some good reasons that’s amazing yeah was that all organic LinkedIn that
48:16
you were doing yeah yeah no we didn’t do any paid LinkedIn amazing to see what LinkedIn can do for businesses oh yeah
48:22
yeah huge it was really helpful um but um yeah so the first batch of
48:27
customers came from that and then and then really I would say we try to keep it simple and and so for
48:34
example 2022 we launched in the summer of 2022. Oh Wow Fresh then yeah yeah
48:40
we’re new and and so our 2022 is all about traffic awareness and so honestly
48:48
didn’t care about listings didn’t care about care about like conversions from that point of view um and not everybody’s buying and
48:54
selling privately yeah it’s more like and so we were just hitting the awareness gas pedal and and our Focus
49:00
that was our one Rally Point so when it came to decisions on how to spend where to spend um did it create traffic that that was
49:07
all we cared about um and I think as a business what I you know our goal was to
49:14
I would much rather build an audience I’d rather be fishing out of a stocked
49:19
fishing pond than be sitting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with a piece of bread you know waiting a week or
49:24
month for someone to come test it out yeah that’s what we did that’s why we focused on traffic first now come
49:31
January 1 all right now we’re focused on reducing customer acquisition costs we’re focused on conversions and so now
49:38
it’s all a game of product pricing product pricing all you’re doing is tweaking and to see what’s converting
49:45
um and so that and that’s been fun that’s where we’re at you know today we’re making little tweaks and then a
49:51
meet and seeing the immediate impact of that because we have enough people coming to the site to test fast yeah
49:59
that’s interesting we were just talking about this like building building a basically a massive audience and then
50:04
converting the audience like it just makes way more sense in the in in the long term
50:10
um and you get so it’s the user feedback piece is huge because otherwise like if
50:17
you’re in the middle of the ocean with this little tiny piece of bread right what are you going to have a great white like come up and like basically just
50:23
snatch you up and then you don’t get a test you don’t get all these other and the feedback from that one bite may not be the the best exactly exactly but I’d
50:30
rather you know you’d rather get all of that feedback um and then create something or then
50:36
make the tweaks that are necessary to get the conversions right well and I think it prevents you from wasting money
50:42
too so for example when I look at so we’re over I think we’re around 150 000
50:48
unique visitors to our site right now uh including paid in organic um so when I look at that it’s like wait
50:54
a minute like we don’t need to be putting the gas pedal if we can’t figure this out based off of that much traffic
51:01
yeah then then we are not going to be successful at a million views or 2
51:06
million views we’re not going to be successful so now all of our focus is dialing in conversions based off of the
51:13
existing traffic once we get that dialed in all right now let’s double down on the paid but yeah until then there’s no
51:19
reason to to spend more money on marketing at all yeah I think that’s such a good way to word it because we
51:26
try and over complicate things so much in business and that to me just reminded
51:31
me of growing up I was a musician and I think it’s a very similar uh pattern
51:36
where I got the opportunity to go and play at the Gateway in Salt Lake before City Creek existed cool and asking I
51:43
would go I’d open my guitar case and set up a little system and I’d start playing and if you gather an audience then
51:51
obviously you’re doing something right if and then all of a sudden you know you open the guitar case if they put in
51:57
money you’re doing something really right yeah so then maybe think about putting a CD out there in the future
52:03
that they could buy too right I think marketing and business can be over complicated and sometimes data can ruin
52:12
your your vision um but when you look at it simply and just say if I was standing in a room and
52:18
I pitched this and an audience gathered right then now what’s the next step okay
52:23
should I start selling CDs to this audience like so I think that’s a great thing to consider one more yeah yeah
52:30
start simple and grow it from there because there’s no point in wasting the
52:35
time to make something super complex yeah if no one’s gonna bite it yeah or if you’re or if your audience is too
52:41
Niche that it just it’s not worth the time and effort yeah you know and but I think that is the it comes down to with
52:49
content you guys have chosen to focus on content first and there there’s a opportunity cost there 100 because
52:56
you’re you spend the time and effort into the content and definitely money maybe you’re not burning it as fast with
53:03
paid but you’re definitely spending time and uh and money into organic oh yeah
53:09
yeah so it’s expensive yeah but I think even developing just uh I don’t know I
53:14
kind of just use the word flow a lot um I I if there’s any point in the
53:21
business where someone is like like oh I need help or I need like okay well who
53:26
does this next or whatever it’s like you know you don’t have flow um if if the ability to go from idea to
53:34
execution without anybody in the middle needing like that it stops for any
53:39
reason waiting for this to get approved or that um you have a problem yeah your business
53:46
internally needs to be just as scalable is what you’re trying to do on the external for your your customer it’s
53:52
almost like to in my mind that’s like I I love that strategy of it too it’s
53:58
almost just as important and just as exciting and fulfilling for me to know that I can do something with zero people
54:05
or one person that you rested the companies there in Lehigh take 10 20 and 50 people to do
54:12
um giving me satisfaction yeah 100 yeah yeah totally especially here it’s so
54:17
competitive here well and the fact that Tech has been overstaffed for so long yeah no I think um
54:24
um so many people they they think to throw people at pain
54:30
points before stopping and innovating um and and sometimes that’s and that’s
54:36
the problem with having too much money yeah so if you if you get too much you know VC funds or whatever it is
54:43
the the the first thing A lot of people do is put people at pain points yeah you know oh we need this department we need
54:49
all these people we need more people to carry my golf clubs you know yeah no and
54:54
it’s but sometimes it’s like wait a minute wait a minute stop like what tools could we use off the shelf without
55:00
having to develop it ourselves that are that are simple scalable low cost that would actually connect this this and
55:05
this and you know or it would solve that pain point right there or we can automate x amount of our process using
55:12
this it’s like you know how many times do people just stop and like like analyze it that way
55:19
um I think that side of it is really exciting for me I love to like I love like new tools that like just just
55:26
alleviate pain points um and so but there’s so many Cool Tools nowadays that just streamline the back
55:33
end of a startup yeah um and and it’s it this is an exciting time to start a business it is so much
55:40
easier to start a business nowadays than it used to be you know with with with tools that take care of HR admin you
55:47
know just uh you know accounting and and so many different functions where you
55:53
know you needed people for it before yeah whereas now it’s like TurnKey when I saw your face light up when you
56:00
brought up chat gbt and I was like oh I bet uh I bet Brad here is an epic user
56:06
I dabbled with it my son uses it a lot but uh yeah yeah it’s pretty cool tool I
56:12
mean it’s it’s definitely gonna revolutionize digital marketing that’s that’s for sure and they just released gpt4 which is like
56:19
10x better than gpt3 so pretty cool I mean you always have people that are
56:24
kind of anti-some of the new stuff when it comes out or you know this that but at the end of the day it’s like hey how
56:30
can I you know I think the way I look at is how okay that’s cool how can I embrace it to accelerate what I do yeah yeah it
56:38
may not be you know it may not be a hundred percent applicable you know like chat GPT it’s like you know okay are
56:44
there SEO people that are going to be scared it’s going to take away their job you know I don’t think so I think it’s going to be an accelerator for their
56:50
business you know for them to that you still need finesse you know you still need to do strategy you still need you
56:56
know some of that uh you know human intervention that kind of goes on top of it but you can use that to create you
57:03
know the the the core of what you need and then you know accelerate your
57:09
content flow with the right people and strategy oh yeah I love that our copywriter freaked out when I sent her
57:15
chat GPT in a really good way like it was like basically she’s like oh my gosh
57:22
I can do 10 I literally can do 10x the output yeah that I that would have like
57:27
I can a blog post that would have taken me with research like two hours I can now put it out in a half an hour even 20
57:35
minutes and it’s good yeah it’s good content it’s not like you know it’s basically anyway it’s just really cool
57:41
it’s been able to AI should enhance like your current workflow it should
57:48
give everything you need to like exponentially increase what you’re able to do at least that’s at least I think
57:55
the way it should be used if you’re using it to replace something um or maybe replace people it I don’t
58:02
think in the long term it’ll be a good replacement in some Industries for people yeah okay unless we give them
58:08
brain it’s hard to get the robots brains I love it but um one thing that you said
58:14
about new tools and how you love them when we first started to make some money with scroll we thought oh we need we
58:21
should look into softwares that could help us and very quickly it was 2500
58:28
bucks a month in software and then five thousand dollars a month in software yeah and now we’re to a point where we
58:34
love to look at software and say okay wait are we paying for three softwares where one of them does these other two
58:42
tasks really well and I actually find that pretty fun too and we’ve been playing around with that a lot lately so
58:48
I well and nowadays there’s so many like the New Kids on the Block the uh like these new little upcoming software
58:54
companies that are a fraction of the cost they actually have a better user interface I mean like there’s lots of
59:00
Legacy software out there you know so be careful about hiring some of these people from the big tech companies that
59:06
are used to using their legacy software um and and then they want to uh you know
59:11
you know Embrace that within your startup no no no you know out you know there’s so many like low-cost high value
59:18
tools that do just as much or more as some of these you know Legacy software out there yeah I think that’s a great
59:24
Point well Brad I guess to pull it all back to
59:30
um and maybe wrap up the episode today what what if what advice would you give
59:35
to young young entrepreneurs young people that want to start uh and their
59:41
own maybe their own agency maybe it’s their own startup what are the pieces from your story that you feel would be
59:47
really valuable for them to start their businesses yeah good question I think um you know
59:54
jump in you know just jump in and and jump in an industry jump in in a a particular vertical that that you think
1:00:01
you like and really find what you’re passionate about um I think that’s one of the things in
1:00:06
the beginning I thought like oh my gosh I have to learn all this stuff no like if I if I started over again I’d be like
1:00:12
I’d find my swim lane and then I’d double down on my superpower you know find the strengths that you’re good at
1:00:18
Double Down on it and then surround yourself with the people who compliment you know the areas or or you know you
1:00:25
know the strengths that you need to do your business but I mean I think that’s one thing you know find your superpower
1:00:31
double down on it but you kind of have to get your hands dirty jump into an industry find find the pain points that
1:00:37
are close to you that you can experience firsthand and then um
1:00:43
and I think the other thing too is um actually there’s a saying in my family we use it quite often focus and finish
1:00:51
I love it and uh you know with even just taking out the trash you know it’s like squirrel you know it’s like yeah yeah
1:00:57
you know focus and finish that was me but I think it’s yeah but it’s so applicable in business I think I think
1:01:04
um you know it is the road between idea and execution is a very very long road
1:01:11
and if you don’t have the passion the persistence to just focus and finish
1:01:16
that Journey there’s no way you’re gonna you know cross that finish line um and so anyway those are just some
1:01:24
things I think about a lot and even have to remind myself all the time like all right Brad get back on track like no no
1:01:29
don’t get distracted by those shiny objects over there like you gotta nail this first before you open door two
1:01:36
three and four and until you get momentum right here don’t even think about opening up those other doors yeah
1:01:42
so I love that and I think that’s a fantastic way to finish today focus and
1:01:49
finish yeah well I think that to me I that just is everything that I think but
1:01:55
can’t put into words and that so we’re just very grateful that
1:02:01
we’ve been able to have you on because to us it’s like Consulting uh we feel
1:02:07
like we learned so much and that that concept to me is like wow that you just
1:02:13
put so simply something that I feel like I struggle so much with which is that idea to execution
1:02:20
and um a lot of times I’ll sit down with people or go to lunch with people that have ideas and I’m like cool do
1:02:27
something and then let’s actually go to lunch and have a serious conversation about this but you just simplified it
1:02:33
into three words you know the idea to execution we’re trying to create a mural in our
1:02:39
office it’s now literally going to be this these two words focus and then we’ll have you come sign it
1:02:46
okay and we’re gonna have Brad just sign his name on it I love that that’s harder
1:02:52
you’re in marketing world you’re all over the place oh my gosh very true yeah but no thank you so much for coming on
1:02:58
it it means the world send us an invoice for the Consulting yeah that’s awesome
1:03:04
um and yeah we don’t really have an exit but this is a good time for you to kind
1:03:10
of plug yourself and plug your business so where can people find you uh where can people find private auto who’s it a
1:03:17
good fit for yeah yeah no so uh privateauto.com uh yeah just uh we we make it easy to you
1:03:25
know we’re like the venmo of private vehicle sales we make it easy to do that transaction in the parking lot uh sign
1:03:31
the bill of sale and uh transfer funds all on your phone um the cool thing is it’s a hundred
1:03:37
percent Tech driven and uh and and you can do it between two people and not have anyone outside telling you what to
1:03:44
do um and so anyway yeah I know privateauto.com it’s easy to list and
1:03:49
actually the other thing too we’re the first Marketplace that exists that you can pay later so you can actually list your car and
1:03:56
only choose to pay the fee if your car sells the reason why is we’re the only Marketplace that actually has a
1:04:02
transactional portal so check it out I like it that’s very cool and where where can people find you where are you yeah
1:04:09
oh LinkedIn yeah LinkedIn is probably the best place yeah but uh yeah so LinkedIn simple awesome great well
1:04:17
thanks for coming on really appreciate it thanks guys appreciate it [Music]
1:04:25
hello
