April 13, 2025 • 35 mins
Company: BubbleUp
Guest: Lee Totten
Year Started: 2004
Employees: 50-99
Working with rockstars sounds glamorous but behind the scenes is a high-stakes, high-pressure world where websites crash, fans demand instant support, and one missed detail can derail a global livestream. In this episode, Lee Totten, co-founder of BubbleUp, shares how his agency became the digital backbone for artists like Jimmy Buffett, Foo Fighters, and The Lumineers.
Key Takeaways
- Why building trust with fans (or customers) matters more than flashy tech
- Why shared experiences, not just content, build lasting engagement
- The best way to turn service slip-ups into raving fan moments
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to An Agency Storypodcast where we share real
stories of marketing agencyowners from around the world.
From the excitement of startingup the first big sale, passion,
doubt, fear, freedom, and theemotional rollercoaster of
growth, hear it all on An AgencyStory podcast.
(00:24):
An Agency Story podcast ishosted by Russel Dubree,
successful agency owner with aneight figure exit turned
business coach.
Enjoy the next agency story.
Russel (00:41):
What do Foo Fighters, Jimmy Buffett, and the Lumineers
all have in common?
They've all worked with today'sguest and he's got the stories
to prove it.
Welcome to an Agency Storypodcast.
I'm your host Russel.
In this episode, we're joined byLee Totten, co-founder and
partner at Bubble Up, a 50 plusperson digital agency that's
been delivering high tech, hightouch fan experiences for the
(01:01):
entertainment industry for over20 years.
From running live streams forarena sized crowds to scaling
servers under Super Bowl levelpressure.
Lee's team lives at theintersection of backstage chaos
and front row magic.
We explore how BubbleUp wentfrom indie artist support to
running fan communities for someof the biggest names in music
and why being in service to theclient and solving the real
(01:23):
problems still trumps all theshiny tech.
This is a masterclass inhumility, hustle, and high
stakes problem solving.
Enjoy the story.
Welcome to the show today, Ihave the fabulous Lee Totten
with BubbleUp with us heretoday.
Thank you so much for joining ustoday, Lee.
Lee (01:39):
Thank you.
Excited to be here.
Russel (01:40):
Excited to have you.
I'm sure we'll have no shortageof great things to talk about
today, and I do hear we sharesome common Cowboys, fandom.
Lee (01:50):
We are linked together in, in misery.
Seems like, uh, any way thewheels can fall off, they will
these days so we're doing ourbest.
Russel (01:56):
There's some people out there saying, I feel you too,
and there's some people likeyou, silly Cowboys fan.
Just get right to it and thenwe'll get more to the backstory.
What does BubbleUp do and who doyou do it for?
Lee (02:06):
Absolutely.
BubbleUp is a digital agency.
We've been around for the past20 years.
Our primary market is we doeverything from e-commerce
websites, custom dev fancommunities, uh, fulfillment,
uh, and custom applicationdevelopment, primarily in the
entertainment space, although wedo do a lot of corporate work as
well.
But we got our start doing itfrom musicians.
Everybody from the Eagles toJimmy Buffet to Laney Wilson,
(02:28):
uh, Lumineers.
There's a hundred others Iforget.
But, uh, we're probably one ofthe bigger in the space.
I deal with a lot of rock starsduring the day.
Russel (02:34):
Just name dropping rock stars, like, uh, like everybody
works with rock stars every day.
Maybe you've just gotten used toit, but I, I mean, I feel like
there could be a podcast episodeper rockstar that you've worked
with and, and some cool storiesthere.
Lee (02:47):
I came from a music background, so, uh, for me this
is a great combination of thething I already love, the people
I already like to hang out with,but I always say the pay and the
hours are slightly better, so.
Russel (02:56):
Than being a musician?
I've heard that.
There is no shortage ofmusicians turned agency owners,
believe it or not.
I run into that quite a bit.
Tell us about, I'm guessing,what was Young Lee, the
musician, what was he doing?
Lee (03:07):
Absolutely.
I actually started out as a, asa writer, writer.
I was a traditional Englishmajor with a philosophy minor,
just to make myself that muchmore marketable in the
marketplace.
But I found that writing was avery solitary, lonely art.
Spent a lot of time alone andonce in a while you might get
some feedback.
That got me into music.
I played full-time for a while,had some success with, of all
things, a song aboutJagermeister.
I always dreamed that someday Iwould be on National Public
(03:29):
Radio.
I did not think it would be fora song about Jagermeister, but
there we are.
But then I ran into some issuesand blew my voice out.
And I discovered that, uh, it'stough to make a living as a
singer songwriter if you can'tsing.
But in that time I came up inthe era when the web was just
brand new.
My first website, I think was in92 or 93.
When I was playing full-time, Iwas creating my own website,
doing my own marketing.
I think we were using MySpaceback then even.
(03:51):
But I learned how to code.
I learned how to build awebsite.
I learned how to market throughthe internet and all of that.
So when I lost my voice, uh,through a series of events,
ended up meeting my businesspartner who was doing a lot of
cool technical stuff for JimmyBuffett, and his idea was, hey,
let's do this for other artists,mostly to empower them to be
able to control their destiny alittle more.
A lot of times artists are atthe, at the mercy of the labels
or their fulfillment partners ortheir managers, and we wanted to
(04:13):
try to give them the tools to beable to run their own stores, to
run their own websites and doall of that.
That sort of started us on ourjourney.
Russel (04:19):
There's a really a billion cool stories in there.
Let's go back to the musiccareer.
First, just so I don't forget toask, what's the name of the
song?
Lee (04:27):
Oh, yeah, sadly, if you Google the Jager song, I still
show up.
That's the whole thing.
Russel (04:32):
You don't seem to love this accolade in the end.
Lee (04:34):
Oh, no, it's, it's fine.
I do remember when it, when thatsong first came out, I obviously
as an English major, I writesongs about my feelings too.
This song was starting to getpopular and I got asked to do a
big show for a radio station,uh, in front of like 20,000
people.
I called up a friend of mine whoused to manage Aerosmith, and I
said, man, they want me to dothis song and do this show, but
like, I'm not, I'm not Weird AlYankovic.
(04:54):
I remember he goes, Lee, dopeople come and see you because
of that song?
I said, yes.
He said, can you play your otherstuff after?
I said, yes.
He said, then embrace it.
You're lucky to have somethingthat people want to hear.
That's held true through all theagency stuff as well.
Take advantage of the wins whenyou can and, and don't be afraid
to, to own them in order to, togrow from there.
I've come to terms with it.
It's all good stuff,
Russel (05:12):
All right.
Sounds like some therapy, maybe,got you, got you through all
that.
Lee (05:15):
Right?
Absolutely.
A lot of therapy.
Russel (05:17):
This darn hit song that you had to endure.
I'm not a musician by any means.
I can't even play like, uh,tapping my fingers.
But I imagine that has to bewhat a lot of musicians feel
like, if I have to play thissong one more time, like what
all their hit stuff.
Or maybe, maybe some of'em dolearn to enjoy it.
I don't know.
But it doesn't seem like anuncommon challenge of having,
having to cater to that need.
Lee (05:36):
What makes it unique every time is the audience.
When you're playing a song thatyou've played a thousand times,
if the audience is into it, it'sfulfilling.
I think it's, it's probably thesame as, as we've experienced
from the agency side.
Have I built a website before?
Yes.
Thousands.
But when you're doing it andyou're solving a problem for a
customer and you're giving themsomething, an advantage they
didn't have before, it's, it'sfulfilling in its own way, even
though the work is repetitive attimes.
(05:57):
It's really about the results,uh, and the people that you're,
you're, you're catering to thatmake it fun.
Russel (06:01):
That's good perspective.
We can apply your whole musiccareer clearly, clearly to
agency, uh, all, all your agencywork, which is good.
Maybe that's why musicians makegood agency owners.
It sounds like you landed in aniche pretty early.
Was that the goal?
Did that just come naturally belike, hey, I'm doing music for,
for rockstars and that's what Ineed to keep doing?
Or was there some trials andtribulations on that journey and
(06:21):
kind of making that part of yourfocus?
Lee (06:23):
In terms of us as an agency or me personally?
Russel (06:25):
I guess both.
If they're different.
Lee (06:27):
I was a musician who didn't have a voice, so when the
opportunity came to start acompany and bring some income
in, I thought that sounded likea great idea.
I wasn't sure how long till I'dbe able to get back to singing.
But we, we definitely startedwith the idea of, uh, focusing
on musicians.
Like I said, my business partnerhad worked with Jimmy Buffet,
um, back in the broadcast, uh,FM days.
He actually helped Jimmy put aradio station online called
(06:49):
Radio Margaritaville, uh, whichis now on SiriusXM.
We knew a lot of independentartists between us and he wanted
to help them have some of thosesame tools.
Back in those days there was noShopify, uh, there was no
WordPress, there was no, um, youknow, Squarespace.
It was really hard for musiciansto build websites.
It was always some strange guydriving a Pinto, uh, who was
also selling weed on the side,who would try to get you to do a
(07:10):
website for you.
But we wanted it so that theycould sell their own
merchandise.
They could build their ownmailing list.
We often say that that, uh, youknow, businesses have fans too.
They just call'em customers.
I think the fundamentals applyacross, whether it's the music
business or whether it'straditional business, you want
to have control.
You wanna have agency over yourown destiny.
The best way to do that ishaving as much of the website
under your control, buildingthose mailing lists, being able
(07:31):
to cater direct to the fans andopen that communication between
them.
Music was intentional.
We always thought it was aboutdownloads.
This was right before iTunesbecame a thing.
We've taken some twists andturns and it's, it's been
interesting because we've, we'vecome to realize that we're
really heavy on the technicalside.
We're geeks, and so we like tosolve problems with the
technology.
We love to build systems thathelp our clients do what they
(07:52):
need to do.
For us, that was building, atthe start, building a content
management system that wouldcater to fan clubs and to
musicians with the discographyand tour dates and all of that.
Russel (08:00):
You've done such an amazing job.
I can continue to draw theparallels, but uh, I don't know,
was your early stage tagline,don't get your weed and your
website from the same guy?
Lee (08:09):
No, it was, uh uh, I can't actually say it.
I'll tell you after.
Russel (08:12):
You didn't even ask if this podcast was rated, but it
must be bad.
Fair enough.
Now everybody's like, what theheck is he talking about?
Lee (08:18):
We don't take ourselves too seriously.
We take the work seriously, butwe try to have a good time and
have fun in the process.
Russel (08:23):
That's all we can do.
That's all we can do.
I'd be enthralled, but maybe,maybe you were on the music
scene.
You're kind of a star yourself.
When you were working with, Idon't know, who was your first
big shot client and was there,were you starstruck at all or
what, what was that like?
Lee (08:35):
Jimmy Buffett, Margaritaville was our first.
I had grown up a Jimmy Buffettfan.
To get to work with him, um, andto realize just, I always say,
you know, the image of JimmyBuffett's pretty cool, but the
real person was even cooler.
To get to work with him and tosee how his mind work and his,
his acumen for business, hisability to connect with the fans
and to carry sort of hispersonality through all of the
different things that he haddone was really cool to see.
(08:57):
Then from there, I think ournext one was, uh, uh, Big Rich
from Music Mafia, uh, countrymusic guys.
I don't necessarily getstarstruck, but, but if you
don't appreciate the fact thatyou're in the presence of some
of these folks, I think you'renot living life quite right.
We got to create a, a seriescalled Live from Darryl's House
with Darryl Hall, where weactually filmed a bunch of
concerts from his house inupstate New York.
I remember being in the room forone of the first ones and Darryl
(09:19):
Hall is singing, and I mean, nomatter how much I've been around
people like that, you can't bein a room and Darryl Hall
singing and not go, oh my gosh,that's Daryl Hall singing.
It's incredible.
It's been neat in that respect.
I don't get starstruck, butit's, it's really cool to
realize that a lot of the folksthat succeed work really hard
and are very talented.
It's not an accident for sure.
Russel (09:38):
What a perspective.
I can feel the sense ofappreciation.
I've heard Hall and Oates and, Ican't imagine what that's like,
just like, almost like a privatelive performance from a great
musician.
Gets the hair on the back of myneck standing up a little bit.
Obviously some of the output ofwhat you're doing from a work
perspective, you know, probablyis different, right?
We're not creating fan pagesfor, um, investment business or
(09:59):
something along those lines.
I think you said you did somework outside of the music space,
but what is the unique partabout other than who they are, I
guess you could say, aboutworking with musicians versus
the typical business world?
Lee (10:10):
My short, sort of humorous answer is the phone rings at all
hours.
They don't have business hours,so you may find out late on a
Friday night that something'sbeing announced Saturday morning
and you have to adjust.
We've got a team that's prettyused to that, and the music
business does not have normalhours and a lot of things happen
fast, uh, and unexpectedly.
That's always a challenge.
Otherwise it's really nodifferent than any other
(10:30):
business, uh, except obviouslythe, the profile of it.
One of the, the really funthings is because we run the fan
clubs, we run a lot of, we do alot of customer service.
We work with the fans themselvesand they've come to know us.
I've actually been at showswhere I'm trying to help
somebody or see somebodystruggling with something in, in
the ticket line, and I'll talkto them and say, I'm Lee from
BubbleUp.
Can I help?
They go, oh my God, you're fromBubbleUp.
(10:50):
We love BubbleUp.
I told some folks the other day,I'm like, how often is it that
people know the, the agency thatdoes the website of their
favorite artist?
Russel (10:57):
Probably next to never.
Lee (10:58):
That's a testament to the customer care folks.
My business partner, his dad wasa mechanic who, uh, auto
mechanic in small town Arkansaswho really put a, a focus on
taking care of customers.
That's what has driven us.
We'll go above and beyond to tryto take care of customers.
We have a saying, pick up thephone.
Don't just send an email, pickup the phone, and we'll do that
with fans as well.
That's sort of the through line,through everything that we do
and that's what's helped us havethis connection with fans where
(11:20):
they know who we are.
Russel (11:21):
Okay.
And then just more curiosity inthis line of work, similarities
and differences is, do you kindof have a, a tried and true
recipe of, generally speaking,all musicians need to have this,
this, and this?
Or is it just so very uniquebased upon the, the musician
themselves and their, and, andthe fan base and everything is a
completely new recipe when, whenyou're looking at it across the
(11:42):
board?
Lee (11:42):
I think it runs, it runs the gamut.
It's different for every artistdepending on their situation,
but it's also constantlyevolving.
Where we were 10 years ago or 15years ago, where you'd say your
website needs to be this bigevolved thing where they can
find information abouteverything.
Now of course, this, it feelslike every social, um, network
is its own outpost where youwanna push information and maybe
(12:02):
the website is more of a hub.
It's constantly adjusting andconstantly having to figure out
what works for each artist andtheir needs.
Do they have a huge fan base?
Are they a legacy artist thathas a huge discography in which
case we're going on?
We're gonna want to allow fansthat may have just discovered
them to dive deeper on thewebsite, but at the same time,
you know, as I like to say, uh,you know, a, a really expensive
website isn't gonna make peoplego there.
(12:23):
Just'cause you build it doesn'tmean they come.
It's an important tool, but notthe only tool in the toolbox.
One challenge that is different,I forgot about the music
business is you don't get, uh,in a lot of the corporate world
except maybe the Super Bowl, Iguess.
If we're doing something for theAcademy of Country Music and
they announce it on television,um, that puts quite a, quite a
website strain on theinfrastructure.
We've gotten really good atlearning how to handle that, but
(12:44):
uh, the first three times arescary.
Russel (12:45):
Do a lot of server scaling there at, uh, at a
BubbleUp.
Lee (12:48):
A lot of service scaling, a lot of, uh, you know, predictive
stuff and a lot of, a lot ofstress testing in advance'cause
there is nothing like a TV hit.
Russel (12:55):
Gosh.
I know we had some experienceslike that, so we worked with the
Dallas Morning News and ifthere's a big major Dallas blow
up, we had to do a lot of that,but I can't imagine just on a
right, on a regular, somewhat, Idon't know if constant basis is
the word, but, uh, a regularbasis.
They're getting a lot of press,so I can see where that's a
quite a skill for you guys.
Lee (13:12):
It's easy for us all to, to criticize when your, you know,
your favorite ticketing sitegoes down.
But I think any of us in thisbusiness know how hard it's to
keep those things up whenyou're, you know, everybody in
the world is going to the exactsame place at the exact same
time.
Russel (13:25):
Refreshing it a thousand times, which is exponentially
multiplying, the people there.
That's fascinating.
I'm curious if you've got thisanswer to this one, obviously
very tied and rooted in themusic biz, little fame yourself,
it sounds like, as a businessand an agency, which is a really
cool thing.
What's, like, your biggestsuccess story of like, oh man,
that, that was really cool.
We did a really cool thingthere.
Lee (13:45):
I think there's a couple of them.
Number one was Live FromDarryl's House.
We actually won a Webby forthat, which was pretty exciting.
Just creating something thatpeople talk about still to this
day.
It's just neat to sort of havethat legacy out there.
One of the other fun things wedid was, uh, Jimmy Buffett
wanted to do a show where heplayed a bunch of songs, um,
that he doesn't always play.
We actually did an onlinecontest where fans could vote
(14:05):
for them, um, of all, and hemade this long list.
He rehearsed a crazy amount of,uh, time to learn all these
songs again.
Then we did a show in Key WestFlorida.
At first Jimmy wanted to selltickets for$5 a piece, you had
to show up and buy them.
It's a small 300 seat theater.
We try to explain to Jimmy thatyou can't do that if you're
Jimmy Buffett because too manypeople will show up and not near
enough will get in.
(14:25):
We ended up giving away, uh, all300 tickets.
He did this, this great show, wecall it the Key West Set List
Show, where he played a bunch ofsongs he doesn't normally play,
told stories to an intimateaudience of 300 people, and then
we live streamed it to almost ahundred thousand at the exact
same time for free.
It was just a really sort of aneat, iconic kind of an event
that we got to do.
I think the other success storywas really the pandemic.
(14:45):
A lot of what we do revolvesaround the touring world, um,
and fan clubs are drivenprimarily by ticket sales.
When the pandemic hit, there wasnot a lot of that going on.
As a business, we pivoted todoing live streams.
I personally ended up runningthree or 400 live streams over
the course of that pandemic, uh,and our entire team would work
all day long.
Then at night they'd all showback up online after dinner and
we would do customer service andrun live streams.
That was quite the adventure aswell, especially, uh.
(15:07):
when you're doing stuff for,like, Foo Fighters.
We had one where we weren't surewe were gonna get a satellite
feed for the internet even 20minutes beforehand.
It was a lot of fun.
I'm really proud of the teamthat we have, that we got
through that.
A lot of crazy stories at times.
Russel (15:18):
I'm just even trying to run through like the arsenal in
my mind of just all the thingsyou gotta be ready and prepared
for and really build in as acapability.
You're part PR, part, you know,social media gurus, part, part a
lot, server scalers.
That couldn't have been an easyprocess to bake all those
capabilities at a, at a scalablelevel into the business.
Give us some insight on what'syour, what's your secret sauce
(15:41):
and magic there?
Lee (15:41):
We started out fairly small just doing the fan communities,
which is mostly a lot of coding,and then obviously the customer
service component.
As the industry has changed andas social media has changed, um,
we've just sort of, we've, we,we're very good at adapting.
We've managed to find the talentthat we need to find in order
to, to supplement the areasthat, that we're lacking in or
that we need to be, be strongin.
I always like to say I don't, Idon't wanna be the smartest
(16:03):
person in the room.
I love hiring people who are waysmarter than me, um, from the
music days.
I called it my bass player rule.
I don't want a bass player whereI can say, play this, this, and
this, because then it's onlygonna be as good as I can play,
which is not very good.
I want a bass player that blowsme away so that when I say, give
me something in this feel, um,they give me some great ideas.
And that's what we've done is,is really try to find the right
people, talented people,multidisciplined people who can
(16:25):
do a lot of different skills,uh, and who are able to keep up
with the pace that we're, we'reworking at.
Russel (16:30):
How many folks does it take to make this whole
operation work to where you'reat today?
Lee (16:33):
Right now we're, we're just over 50.
We've got three offices, so onedown in Houston, one up here in
New England, and then one inNashville, Tennessee.
It runs the gamut from hardcorebackend developers, custom app
developers, data analysts.
Marketers, folks buyingkeywords, uh, Google ads.
That's obviously not my strengthas you can tell because I don't
even know the nomenclature, um,designers, uh, and a whole bunch
(16:55):
of customer service folks, uh,and ongoing account maintenance
folks who will, who will dealwith our customers on a
day-to-day basis.
Because I'm sure much like theagency stuff you do, you get a
customer in the door, you buildthe website, you get them set
up.
That's usually just thebeginning of the relationship.
We've got artists that we'vebeen working with for, for 10
years plus where we've gonethrough multiple album cycles,
multiple managers, and sothere's always something new
(17:15):
coming up that we've gottaadjust a website for, adjust a
social strategy for, um, just alot always going on.
Russel (17:21):
Like you said, 20, it's a 24/7 biz.
Somehow, some way you've gottahave a, something in place to
handle that.
You mentioned three differentlocations.
One makes total sense, maybeeven two makes total sense.
But why the, why the locationsthat you have, just in case it's
not as common or, or intuitiveas I might think?
Lee (17:36):
When we first started, it was just my business partner and
myself.
He lives in Houston, uh, and Ilived up here in New England and
I had a young daughter and hesaid, I'm never gonna make you
move.
I've held him to that.
I've got my design team up herein New England.
But uh, Houston is probably ourbiggest office.
That's a lot of our marketingteam, our marketing folks there,
and also our technology folks.
The, uh, backend coders and allof that.
Then we have Nashville, becauseNashville, the music business in
(17:58):
Nashville is really a smalltown, uh, and having a presence.
We've got a building right onMusic Row.
You almost need to be in town inorder to, to do business there.
We've been there, um, I thinkover, over 10 years, 15 years
now.
Russel (18:08):
On Music row even.
You're just right in the thickof things there.
Lee (18:11):
we are.
Russel (18:12):
I'll quit, uh, stargazing into this awesome
life you're leading.
Lee (18:15):
I love talking about it, man.
It's funny sometimes.
When you're knee deep in adeadline, it's easy to lose
sight of what it is you're doingand, and how cool what you're
doing is.
And it's not often until I'll gointo a, a, a, a store somewhere
and I'll look at the, theshelves of, of the music section
and be like, oh, we work withthem, we work with them, we work
with them.
It's nice to have a chance toreflect and have some
perspective on, on what it is wedo and how lucky we are to do
(18:35):
it.
Russel (18:36):
I remember that feeling when we first started getting
some, more prominent companiesin the Dallas area and like, you
go buy billboards or right, bein a conversation and someone
would be talking about, youknow, this particular business
or whatever, and it's like, ohyeah, we built the website for
them.
It's a pretty cool feeling.
I can only imagine what it, whatit's like in, in your world as
well.
We know your roots into theagency per se, but how is your
(18:56):
role in what you're doing andyour focus, how has that evolved
over time
Lee (19:02):
I liken it to getting an MBA on the job.
I never went to business school,but I feel like I've learned so
much.
I never envisioned myselfmanaging a team of people.
I've gotten to the point nowwhere I feel like my primary job
is getting work done throughothers and, and helping tear
down the barriers that they runinto.
When my team runs into an issue,I'm the guy that tries to solve
it, to keep them moving again.
I feel like it's, it's really inservice to my team, um, is, is
(19:24):
how I approach most days, andit's a little bit everything.
Today I was on several designcalls, a couple internal
meetings.
We're trying to problem solve achallenge we came up with in one
project, you know, what's ourbest way around this?
And then also working on pushingforward some designs with the
team, reviewing those andproviding my input.
I joke that I'll touch in thecourse of a month, 40 or 50
different projects.
Which makes, uh, timekeepingreally a pain in the butt for
(19:44):
me, but it's, uh, it's fun.
I don't get bored.
It's very rare that I get to sitdown and work on one thing for
six or eight hours, but I, Idon't know that I'd have it any
other way.
Russel (19:52):
And you're still loving every minute of it, or is, like,
you see that settling downanytime soon?
What does that look like?
Lee (19:58):
No, I absolutely love it.
I tell you, we, we just had aholiday party down in Houston
for, for the team down there.
What makes it great is we've gotthis amazing group of people
that, um, you know, I joke I'dhang out with, even if I wasn't
working with them, and that,that means that when we go
through these challengestogether, we have rough days or,
or different things.
It's great to be surrounded bypeople that you just like and
admire, um, and are, and justthey're all really, really
(20:18):
bright.
It's a pleasure to get to dothat every day, so whatever I
can do to help them.
Russel (20:22):
It often points back in so many of these conversations I
have with folks of justfundamentals, right?
We're not often missing somebig, miraculous element or piece
to this business, but it'sabout, you know, knowing exactly
who you can be best, mostvaluable for.
Doing all the things from serverscaling to make sure we deliver
that value and deliver it in atimely quality like manner.
(20:42):
And then be a servant leader andtake care of the challenges,
remove obstacles for our team.
It's those basic fundamentals itsounds like you've, you've
gotten really well into yourbusiness.
Lee (20:51):
I think that technology is easy to get lost in all of the
tools that we use, but to yourpoint, the, the fundamentals,
the simple, what we're here todo is solve, is solve problems,
especially for our customers.
That problem is gonna bedifferent for every time.
We both, I'm sure, know agenciesthat always have a one size fits
all solution, uh, but as weknow, businesses and musicians
and everybody else, they allhave unique, slightly unique
(21:11):
problems, and we need to figureout which collection of these
tools is best for that.
But it comes down to justlistening, you know, listening
and being attentive and takingcare of them.
Russel (21:19):
There's a Seth Godin quote that's really resonating
with me lately, and I dunno ifI've even brought this on the
podcast before.
We don't find customers for ourproducts.
We find products for ourcustomers, and if we have a
group of people we're servingwell, we can always be answering
that question.
That's really the key to a goodbusiness.
Sounds like you guys have reallyembodied that notion.
Maybe you gave that quote toSeth Godin, I don't know.
Lee (21:39):
No, that wasn't me.
But, uh, Seth and these quotes,I've got some from him.
It's hard to keep that focus onthe customer.
Sometimes it's very easy to getdistracted by all of the cool
technology, but we have toremember again, the technology
is just the means to the end.
Fundamentally, we need to solvethe customer's problem.
We need to help them feel goodabout the solution.
What collection of tools we usefor that almost doesn't matter
as long as it does the job.
Russel (21:59):
Don't let the tools get in the way of the end goal and
the value.
Good takeaways there.
Just given what you do, yougotta keep your eye on the
horizon, what are things youhave to pay attention to that
when you're looking at thefuture of the biz and those you
serve.
Lee (22:12):
I think we have to look at how, how fans are going to
interact with musicians and howthey're going to consume music.
When I first started playingiTunes wasn't a thing.
Then it became a thing.
We all had to learn how to dothat.
Now apparently nobody buys CDs,but I still have a very large CD
collection of Lee Totten's CDs.
I'm hoping they'll come back invogue, like finals someday.
It's constantly evolving.
(22:32):
We are always doing our best totry to look around corners or at
least be aware of what thechanges may be.
I think that's true even in thenon-music business.
Are we gonna be going to moreheadless CMSs?
Are we gonna be going to more,um, PWA type applications for,
for the web?
Is a website going to be asintegral as it used to be?
Or are we gonna wanna push thatcontent across all of the
socials?
Are all the socials even gonnabe there after next month?
(22:54):
Who knows?
We just do our best to try to,to, to read a lot and stay up on
the trends.
And try to predict what's gonnahappen next.
I don't know that any of us canpredict accurately, but I think
at least having some ideas andsome game plans in your mind of
what you wanna do next, uh, is agood way to be prepared for
whatever comes up.
Russel (23:08):
We can't predict a future, but we can look around
the corner and, and keep oureyes open.
As is my Homer Simpson versionof what you shared.
Lee (23:16):
Much like the Homer Simpson simulcast last night, did you
watch that?
Russel (23:18):
I saw it pop up for me and I didn't watch it.
I did you watch, how was that?
Lee (23:22):
I watched a little bit of it.
Again, as a technology geek, Iwas just impressed with how they
pulled that off, where they'retaking the actual football game
input and converting it tocharacters and adding their own
Simpson esque background to it.
In a little bit of a delay, butit was still pretty impressive
to see.
Russel (23:37):
Why didn't I watch this?
My wife loves the Mannings andso I think she pushed me to
watch the Manning cast insteadof the, the Simpsons cast.
But I should have.
Lee (23:44):
That's a great example though of like, look how many
different ways now we canconsume a football game.
You would assume you would justwatch the broadcast, but now we
can watch the Mannings talkabout the game in their own
unique way.
And I think, you know, again,the world is constantly changing
and we, our job's to try to keepup with whatever the consumers
want.
Russel (23:59):
It is so true.
I've gotten caught up lately andI'm having trouble getting all
the Cowboys games here, butfirst when I wanna watch a game,
watch, I say, uh, especially theNFL that I don't have access to
and I'm not, I'm just at thispoint I'm not gonna get Sunday
ticket.
I'll watch like the live streamof someone watching the game,
giving kind of a, a secondarycommentary.
It's even pulled me in whenthey're saying like, you know,
you know, type one for atouchdown or whatever, first
(24:21):
down, something I never thoughtI would do, but here I am
interacting with this randomperson on YouTube that's, uh,
live streaming the, uh, game orlive, live commenting the game,
I guess is a better way to putit.
Lee (24:30):
It's always interesting too, how as the technology
evolves, it has all of theseunintended consequences.
On the surface it's like, great.
In the evening, if I have sometime, I've got 150 different
channels that I can watch, uh,entertainment on.
The hard part is trying tofigure out which of those 150
channels actually has what Iwant.
There's no centralized sourceanymore, where in the old days,
you could open up a TV guide andthe 33 channels that you had, I
(24:53):
would tell you what was there.
I feel like we're doing a lot ofthat these days, even with the
internet, which is, you know,oh, here's this new rule, or
here's this new law, or here'sthis new way of doing things.
How do we adapt in order to keepup with that?
Russel (25:04):
I was telling someone this recently, I, I missed the
days when, when something cameon at a set time.
Generally, if you didn't watchit that time, you were gonna be
screwed for a good long whileuntil it came on on VHS or A DVD
or whatever.
But I love the efficiency thatthat caused in my life of,
right?
We've gotta have dinner done andall these things done so we can
be on our couch watchingwhatever we're watching at 7:00
(25:24):
PM.
No pausing.
I'm missing that in my life.
Lee (25:26):
We've struggled with that on the music side of things
because there's a differencebetween say a live webcast at a
certain time with an artistwhere it's a shared experience
and everybody is in chat,experiencing it in real time
together, versus an on demandconcert where people are
watching it at all differenttimes, you don't have that
shared experience.
We found that, that trying tobring those shared experiences,
(25:47):
a real event, uh, to the onlinespace is a lot more meaningful
for the fans and for theartists.
But it's, it's hard in anon-demand world when folks wanna
watch it when they watch it.
Russel (25:56):
My wife is very into Taylor Swift as many people are
today, and she was livestreaming the, the her last
tour, concert, I guess is whatI'm hearing, uh, on Sunday.
She was just totally enthralled,or when my daughter, when she
lived or died by One Directionand, and she would watch, she
would stay up all hours of thenight watching the live stream
of their concerts.
I don't think she'd beeninterested in in a recording or
(26:18):
anything along those lines.
It was being there in the momentwas very important.
Lee (26:21):
We did a lot of, so Jimmy, Jimmy Buffett was unique, but he
was very forward thinking.
At the time, he was selling outa lot of concert tours.
His idea was, I'm gonnabroadcast every concert live for
free on the radio.
And then in the later years weevolved that into we're gonna do
a live video broadcast of everyconcert free.
In the traditional, you know,wisdom in the music business is,
well, you don't give it away forfree'cause then people won't buy
(26:41):
tickets.
But people would show up indroves to watch these things.
It became almost a secondarycommunity.
You have folks in California andyou have folks in New England
and you have folks in Texas allgathered together at seven
o'clock to watch the Jimmy Showfrom wherever he was and they're
having virtual cocktailstogether.
It was a real sense of communityand it was a creating a, an
actual event in a virtual world.
(27:02):
That was a pretty cool thing todo.
Russel (27:03):
I love that thought.
I imagine we can, we cannavigate that to even an agency
world of build the audiencefirst.
Not about what we can alwayssell to them or get them to buy,
but build the community and theaudience and then they'll,
they'll buy whatever they needto buy.
I don't think you have to worryabout money if you really create
that, that tie and that thatcommunity with folks.
Such a great lesson.
Lee (27:23):
Give them meaningful experiences with that brand or
with that company.
Make those interactions meansomething.
Make it something that'simportant to them.
I think if you do that, you'vegot customers for life at that
point, you know?
Russel (27:33):
There's the takeaway, there's the mic drop moment,
right?
As an agency, if we wanna pullthis back to an agency, is how
many meaningful experiences areyou creating that don't come on
the other side of a transactionor if the expectation of a
transaction?
And that's not necessarilyalways the easiest.
You could argue a musician cancreate that more easily than an
agency.
But if you think creativelyenough, I bet there's plenty of
(27:53):
opportunities to to do exactlywhat you said there.
Lee (27:55):
I think it can be as simple as the customer service
experience.
Even if I bought something, if Irun into an issue but I have an
amazing customer serviceexperience.
With that company, that's gonnamake me more a fan of that
company.
I'm like, alright.
They get it.
They take care of theircustomers.
Whereas if I have a badexperience, maybe next time I
would choose a different brand.
I've had both sides of that coinrecently with different
companies, uh, and one of themwas phenomenal.
(28:16):
People were attentive andlistened and I could actually
reach a person, which was great,and they solved my problem in a
way that was, was helpful.
It made me think, all right,these guys are, are, they're
doing business the right way.
Those are the folks I wannaspend my money with.
Russel (28:27):
I dunno.
Now you're giving an idea like,should every agency
intentionally screw up?
Lee (28:31):
No, no, I do not recommend that.
Russel (28:33):
And then just do a awesome job on the backside of
of cleaning up the mess orwhatever?
It's not weird if it works.
Could be a thing.
Lee (28:39):
I don't know.
You know what?
The unintentional mistakes arebad enough, so I'm.
Russel (28:43):
To the point, you're gonna get your opportunity.
Just remember that's a greatpoint of, uh, just, just serve
extremely well.
Probably any business out therecan get their best review is not
when just things go nice andsmooth and easy, but when, when
something otherwiseunpredictable or bad happens and
you follow up in an amazing way,great lesson.
Lee (29:00):
I have become a lot more empathetic.
When you get the email thatcomes out after the initial
email from a company that says,oops, we made a mistake.
I'm like, yep, totally get that.
One time I sent an email out,um, to a rather massive, um,
company list.
It was, uh, probably in the600,000 range.
I sent a promotional email outand I accidentally had it come
(29:21):
from my business partner's emailaddress instead of the corporate
email address.
He was able to get all of thosebounces responses and was unable
to use his email for two weeks,I think.
Russel (29:31):
Oh man.
Maybe that was a nice littlevacation moment for him.
Or I imagine stressful.
Lee (29:34):
We tell our devs now to make the important buttons
bright red so that we don'tclick the bright red buttons.
Russel (29:39):
There's a reason why, uh, uh, the, the military puts
the, in the movies, at least, Iguess, I don't know what it
looks like in the real world, isyou gotta use the key and
unlocking all that.
Lee (29:47):
Got the plastic over it.
Russel (29:48):
Exactly.
We kind of talked about thefuture of technology and, and
the business itself, but, or Iguess you could say the industry
itself.
But when you look at thebusiness, what's the future look
like for you?
What's the five year, 10 yearplan as they like to say?
Lee (30:01):
I think for us, obviously continuing to try to stay ahead
of the trends, but, but it'sinteresting to see how the tools
are changing.
AI is obviously, I think, gonnabe a, a big influence on all of
us in terms of how we dobusiness.
I'm not necessarily scared ofit, but I think it's a matter of
how do we use it mosteffectively to solve the
problems that we need to solve.
We've already seen it inexamples of where, you know,
hey, I need a script that doesthis.
(30:22):
And we can generate that with AIthat's pretty close as opposed
to having to start from scratchto generate that code.
Certainly with, with images, um,you know, a lot of the stock
photo agency now is, are buildbuilding AI right into the stock
photo thing.
If you have something that'sclose to the image you want, but
it's not quite exactly right.
In the old days, of course, I'dhave to hand it to a designer
and make him go, you know, takethat dock out and put a boat
(30:44):
there instead.
Now AI will do that for us.
I think it's, you know, thefuture is how do we better
leverage these tools and do itin a way that, that still has
the integrity that we're lookingfor.
Russel (30:52):
There you go.
Just keep doing what you'redoing.
Wonderful stuff.
Last big question for you, Leethen, is are entrepreneurs born
or are they made?
Lee (30:59):
Nature versus nurture?
I think it's a combination.
I think that you can have peoplewho have the predisposition, uh,
and the, and the talent to doit, but may not have the
skillset.
I think you can also have peoplewho have the skillset, but maybe
don't have, don't have thattalent or the drive.
I think it's a matter ofrecognizing early on that, that
being an entrepreneur issomething you wanna do and have
a passion for.
Although I'm not sure any of ustruly know the, the likes of
(31:22):
that journey and the ups anddowns that come with it.
And then I think it's a matterof, of learning as much as you
can.
Like I said, I don't, I don'tever wanna be the smartest
person in a room.
I try to learn from everysituation because there are
always areas that I can improveand get better at.
Learning from the folks who'vedone it before and seeing how
they navigate the, the unsteadywaters of being an entrepreneur.
I think it's a combination ofboth.
I think it's something thatwe're born with, but then I
(31:42):
think it's a learned thing.
I joke about it with music aswell.
The guitar players who thinkthey're the best usually aren't,
uh, and some of the bestmusicians I've ever met are
still humble and, and recognizethose that are greater.
The moment that we feel like weknow it all, we probably don't.
I always try to keep thatbeginner's mind of, you know,
let's, let's learn what we canfrom this and, and always try to
be getting better every day.
Long answer.
Russel (32:01):
Beautiful answer though, because I mean, I almost want to
create a whole nother podcastepisode with so many things you
said there, but I'll, I'll, I'lljust pinpoint just, you know,
the learning process and, andthe gap between maybe where we
are and where we want to be is alot of learning and, and not
just even surface level learningLike you said, who, who, who can
you pick it up from?
What book?
Can you read?
(32:21):
And just context and, and buildaround whatever you're trying to
solve.
That is the name of this game,uh, among many other wonderful
things you said.
Lee (32:28):
I liken it to when you're learning new software, which I
mean, again, I'm, I'm of an agewhere everything was learning
new software because it wasalways something new coming out.
The difference between those whofigure it out and those who
don't is often not how smartthey are, but how persistent
they are at pushing throughthat.
Of course now we have a ton ofresources online to be able to
find these things out, but it's,it's something I tell my kids
(32:48):
all the time.
Look, when you're doingsomething new, when you're
trying something you've nevertried before, there are going to
be challenges.
There are going to be momentswhen you go, why am I even doing
this?
But if you persist through that,um, that's usually when you get
to the good stuff.
It's just a matter of, of beingpersistent enough to get through
that.
Russel (33:02):
You'd think I would remind thyself because I want to
get into pickleball, but I'mjust so darn intimidated by, by
my lack of pickleball skillsthat, and there's some rough
folks in there that I'm just notsure if I'm gonna willing to
overcome some of that learningcurve.
Lee (33:15):
My 17-year-old took me out the other day and humbled me
quickly, so yes.
Russel (33:20):
I'm worried about getting humbled by like an
80-year-old.
But not to mention, I'lldefinitely wanna get humbled by
a 17-year-old.
That's a me problem.
If people wanna know more aboutBubbleUp, where can they go?
Lee (33:28):
BubbleUp.com, uh, everything is up there.
Russel (33:30):
Easy enough.
There you go.
Wonderful journey.
Thank you so much for taking thetime to share and giving us a
little glimpse into thestarstruck life of working for
some great musicians, but somany great lessons learned along
the way, including thefundamentals and just serving
those you serve in a compelling,thought driven, value driven
way.
So many great takeaways againtoday, and I really appreciate
(33:52):
you taking the time to sharethat with us, Lee.
Lee (33:53):
I wanna thank you as well.
It's fun because I feel like alot of times as agencies we're
so isolated in working on theprojects with the clients that
we have.
But we all do the same magictrick and it's nice to be able
to talk to other folks who knowhow to do that magic trick too,
and share stories, horrorstories and adventures and
everything else we've all beenthrough to get to this point.
(34:14):
We hope you've enjoyed thisepisode of An Agency Story
podcast where we share realstories of marketing agency
owners from around the world.
Are you interested in being aguest on the show?
Send an email topodcast@performancefaction.com.
An Agency Story is brought toyou by Performance Faction.
(34:34):
Performance Faction offersservices to help agency owners
grow their business to 5 milliondollars and more in revenue.
To learn more, visitperformancefaction.com.
We were brought on to do a live stream for the Foo Fighters
from the Roxy in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles, as we know, doesnot have great cell coverage,
(34:57):
um, and the venue did not haveparticularly great internet, so
they brought a satellite truckin, in order to hook up to the
internet for us to do this livestream for a lot of people, a
lot of people had already signedup for this live stream.
I got a call about 30 minutesbefore the stream was supposed
to start from the guy in thesatellite truck, and he said,
everybody's bugging me.
I can't get a lock on asatellite.
There's too many buildings andthey keep interrupting me.
(35:18):
Having been through more than myshare of crises before, I said,
lock your door and tell them tocall me.
You work on finding a satellite.
We've learned that you can'tsimultaneously fix a problem and
update people on the problem.
Let the people that can fix it,go and fix it.
I'll take the heat from theclients in terms of what's going
on, and you just work on findinga solution.
That's what he did.
He locked his trailer door, uh,and about 10 minutes before it's
(35:39):
supposed to go live, he finallyfound a satellite and all went
well, and, uh, nobody knows how,how frightened we were in the
process.
Russel (35:44):
I guess it's not Dave Grohl banging down your door of
trying to get answers on this,but.
Lee (35:49):
I've had a few calls from musicians.
Once in a while.
Some are very involved.
Welcome to An Agency Storypodcast where we share real
stories of marketing agencyowners from around the world.
From the excitement of startingup the first big sale, passion,
doubt, fear, freedom, and theemotional rollercoaster of
growth, hear it all on An AgencyStory podcast.
(00:24):
An Agency Story podcast ishosted by Russel Dubree,
successful agency owner with aneight figure exit turned
business coach.
Enjoy the next agency story.
Russel (00:41):
What do Foo Fighters, Jimmy Buffett, and the Lumineers
all have in common?
They've all worked with today'sguest and he's got the stories
to prove it.
Welcome to an Agency Storypodcast.
I'm your host Russel.
In this episode, we're joined byLee Totten, co-founder and
partner at Bubble Up, a 50 plusperson digital agency that's
been delivering high tech, hightouch fan experiences for the
(01:01):
entertainment industry for over20 years.
From running live streams forarena sized crowds to scaling
servers under Super Bowl levelpressure.
Lee's team lives at theintersection of backstage chaos
and front row magic.
We explore how BubbleUp wentfrom indie artist support to
running fan communities for someof the biggest names in music
and why being in service to theclient and solving the real
(01:23):
problems still trumps all theshiny tech.
This is a masterclass inhumility, hustle, and high
stakes problem solving.
Enjoy the story.
Welcome to the show today, Ihave the fabulous Lee Totten
with BubbleUp with us heretoday.
Thank you so much for joining ustoday, Lee.
Lee (01:39):
Thank you.
Excited to be here.
Russel (01:40):
Excited to have you.
I'm sure we'll have no shortageof great things to talk about
today, and I do hear we sharesome common Cowboys, fandom.
Lee (01:50):
We are linked together in, in misery.
Seems like, uh, any way thewheels can fall off, they will
these days so we're doing ourbest.
Russel (01:56):
There's some people out there saying, I feel you too,
and there's some people likeyou, silly Cowboys fan.
Just get right to it and thenwe'll get more to the backstory.
What does BubbleUp do and who doyou do it for?
Lee (02:06):
Absolutely.
BubbleUp is a digital agency.
We've been around for the past20 years.
Our primary market is we doeverything from e-commerce
websites, custom dev fancommunities, uh, fulfillment,
uh, and custom applicationdevelopment, primarily in the
entertainment space, although wedo do a lot of corporate work as
well.
But we got our start doing itfrom musicians.
Everybody from the Eagles toJimmy Buffet to Laney Wilson,
(02:28):
uh, Lumineers.
There's a hundred others Iforget.
But, uh, we're probably one ofthe bigger in the space.
I deal with a lot of rock starsduring the day.
Russel (02:34):
Just name dropping rock stars, like, uh, like everybody
works with rock stars every day.
Maybe you've just gotten used toit, but I, I mean, I feel like
there could be a podcast episodeper rockstar that you've worked
with and, and some cool storiesthere.
Lee (02:47):
I came from a music background, so, uh, for me this
is a great combination of thething I already love, the people
I already like to hang out with,but I always say the pay and the
hours are slightly better, so.
Russel (02:56):
Than being a musician?
I've heard that.
There is no shortage ofmusicians turned agency owners,
believe it or not.
I run into that quite a bit.
Tell us about, I'm guessing,what was Young Lee, the
musician, what was he doing?
Lee (03:07):
Absolutely.
I actually started out as a, asa writer, writer.
I was a traditional Englishmajor with a philosophy minor,
just to make myself that muchmore marketable in the
marketplace.
But I found that writing was avery solitary, lonely art.
Spent a lot of time alone andonce in a while you might get
some feedback.
That got me into music.
I played full-time for a while,had some success with, of all
things, a song aboutJagermeister.
I always dreamed that someday Iwould be on National Public
(03:29):
Radio.
I did not think it would be fora song about Jagermeister, but
there we are.
But then I ran into some issuesand blew my voice out.
And I discovered that, uh, it'stough to make a living as a
singer songwriter if you can'tsing.
But in that time I came up inthe era when the web was just
brand new.
My first website, I think was in92 or 93.
When I was playing full-time, Iwas creating my own website,
doing my own marketing.
I think we were using MySpaceback then even.
(03:51):
But I learned how to code.
I learned how to build awebsite.
I learned how to market throughthe internet and all of that.
So when I lost my voice, uh,through a series of events,
ended up meeting my businesspartner who was doing a lot of
cool technical stuff for JimmyBuffett, and his idea was, hey,
let's do this for other artists,mostly to empower them to be
able to control their destiny alittle more.
A lot of times artists are atthe, at the mercy of the labels
or their fulfillment partners ortheir managers, and we wanted to
(04:13):
try to give them the tools to beable to run their own stores, to
run their own websites and doall of that.
That sort of started us on ourjourney.
Russel (04:19):
There's a really a billion cool stories in there.
Let's go back to the musiccareer.
First, just so I don't forget toask, what's the name of the
song?
Lee (04:27):
Oh, yeah, sadly, if you Google the Jager song, I still
show up.
That's the whole thing.
Russel (04:32):
You don't seem to love this accolade in the end.
Lee (04:34):
Oh, no, it's, it's fine.
I do remember when it, when thatsong first came out, I obviously
as an English major, I writesongs about my feelings too.
This song was starting to getpopular and I got asked to do a
big show for a radio station,uh, in front of like 20,000
people.
I called up a friend of mine whoused to manage Aerosmith, and I
said, man, they want me to dothis song and do this show, but
like, I'm not, I'm not Weird AlYankovic.
(04:54):
I remember he goes, Lee, dopeople come and see you because
of that song?
I said, yes.
He said, can you play your otherstuff after?
I said, yes.
He said, then embrace it.
You're lucky to have somethingthat people want to hear.
That's held true through all theagency stuff as well.
Take advantage of the wins whenyou can and, and don't be afraid
to, to own them in order to, togrow from there.
I've come to terms with it.
It's all good stuff,
Russel (05:12):
All right.
Sounds like some therapy, maybe,got you, got you through all
that.
Lee (05:15):
Right?
Absolutely.
A lot of therapy.
Russel (05:17):
This darn hit song that you had to endure.
I'm not a musician by any means.
I can't even play like, uh,tapping my fingers.
But I imagine that has to bewhat a lot of musicians feel
like, if I have to play thissong one more time, like what
all their hit stuff.
Or maybe, maybe some of'em dolearn to enjoy it.
I don't know.
But it doesn't seem like anuncommon challenge of having,
having to cater to that need.
Lee (05:36):
What makes it unique every time is the audience.
When you're playing a song thatyou've played a thousand times,
if the audience is into it, it'sfulfilling.
I think it's, it's probably thesame as, as we've experienced
from the agency side.
Have I built a website before?
Yes.
Thousands.
But when you're doing it andyou're solving a problem for a
customer and you're giving themsomething, an advantage they
didn't have before, it's, it'sfulfilling in its own way, even
though the work is repetitive attimes.
(05:57):
It's really about the results,uh, and the people that you're,
you're, you're catering to thatmake it fun.
Russel (06:01):
That's good perspective.
We can apply your whole musiccareer clearly, clearly to
agency, uh, all, all your agencywork, which is good.
Maybe that's why musicians makegood agency owners.
It sounds like you landed in aniche pretty early.
Was that the goal?
Did that just come naturally belike, hey, I'm doing music for,
for rockstars and that's what Ineed to keep doing?
Or was there some trials andtribulations on that journey and
(06:21):
kind of making that part of yourfocus?
Lee (06:23):
In terms of us as an agency or me personally?
Russel (06:25):
I guess both.
If they're different.
Lee (06:27):
I was a musician who didn't have a voice, so when the
opportunity came to start acompany and bring some income
in, I thought that sounded likea great idea.
I wasn't sure how long till I'dbe able to get back to singing.
But we, we definitely startedwith the idea of, uh, focusing
on musicians.
Like I said, my business partnerhad worked with Jimmy Buffet,
um, back in the broadcast, uh,FM days.
He actually helped Jimmy put aradio station online called
(06:49):
Radio Margaritaville, uh, whichis now on SiriusXM.
We knew a lot of independentartists between us and he wanted
to help them have some of thosesame tools.
Back in those days there was noShopify, uh, there was no
WordPress, there was no, um, youknow, Squarespace.
It was really hard for musiciansto build websites.
It was always some strange guydriving a Pinto, uh, who was
also selling weed on the side,who would try to get you to do a
(07:10):
website for you.
But we wanted it so that theycould sell their own
merchandise.
They could build their ownmailing list.
We often say that that, uh, youknow, businesses have fans too.
They just call'em customers.
I think the fundamentals applyacross, whether it's the music
business or whether it'straditional business, you want
to have control.
You wanna have agency over yourown destiny.
The best way to do that ishaving as much of the website
under your control, buildingthose mailing lists, being able
(07:31):
to cater direct to the fans andopen that communication between
them.
Music was intentional.
We always thought it was aboutdownloads.
This was right before iTunesbecame a thing.
We've taken some twists andturns and it's, it's been
interesting because we've, we'vecome to realize that we're
really heavy on the technicalside.
We're geeks, and so we like tosolve problems with the
technology.
We love to build systems thathelp our clients do what they
(07:52):
need to do.
For us, that was building, atthe start, building a content
management system that wouldcater to fan clubs and to
musicians with the discographyand tour dates and all of that.
Russel (08:00):
You've done such an amazing job.
I can continue to draw theparallels, but uh, I don't know,
was your early stage tagline,don't get your weed and your
website from the same guy?
Lee (08:09):
No, it was, uh uh, I can't actually say it.
I'll tell you after.
Russel (08:12):
You didn't even ask if this podcast was rated, but it
must be bad.
Fair enough.
Now everybody's like, what theheck is he talking about?
Lee (08:18):
We don't take ourselves too seriously.
We take the work seriously, butwe try to have a good time and
have fun in the process.
Russel (08:23):
That's all we can do.
That's all we can do.
I'd be enthralled, but maybe,maybe you were on the music
scene.
You're kind of a star yourself.
When you were working with, Idon't know, who was your first
big shot client and was there,were you starstruck at all or
what, what was that like?
Lee (08:35):
Jimmy Buffett, Margaritaville was our first.
I had grown up a Jimmy Buffettfan.
To get to work with him, um, andto realize just, I always say,
you know, the image of JimmyBuffett's pretty cool, but the
real person was even cooler.
To get to work with him and tosee how his mind work and his,
his acumen for business, hisability to connect with the fans
and to carry sort of hispersonality through all of the
different things that he haddone was really cool to see.
(08:57):
Then from there, I think ournext one was, uh, uh, Big Rich
from Music Mafia, uh, countrymusic guys.
I don't necessarily getstarstruck, but, but if you
don't appreciate the fact thatyou're in the presence of some
of these folks, I think you'renot living life quite right.
We got to create a, a seriescalled Live from Darryl's House
with Darryl Hall, where weactually filmed a bunch of
concerts from his house inupstate New York.
I remember being in the room forone of the first ones and Darryl
(09:19):
Hall is singing, and I mean, nomatter how much I've been around
people like that, you can't bein a room and Darryl Hall
singing and not go, oh my gosh,that's Daryl Hall singing.
It's incredible.
It's been neat in that respect.
I don't get starstruck, butit's, it's really cool to
realize that a lot of the folksthat succeed work really hard
and are very talented.
It's not an accident for sure.
Russel (09:38):
What a perspective.
I can feel the sense ofappreciation.
I've heard Hall and Oates and, Ican't imagine what that's like,
just like, almost like a privatelive performance from a great
musician.
Gets the hair on the back of myneck standing up a little bit.
Obviously some of the output ofwhat you're doing from a work
perspective, you know, probablyis different, right?
We're not creating fan pagesfor, um, investment business or
(09:59):
something along those lines.
I think you said you did somework outside of the music space,
but what is the unique partabout other than who they are, I
guess you could say, aboutworking with musicians versus
the typical business world?
Lee (10:10):
My short, sort of humorous answer is the phone rings at all
hours.
They don't have business hours,so you may find out late on a
Friday night that something'sbeing announced Saturday morning
and you have to adjust.
We've got a team that's prettyused to that, and the music
business does not have normalhours and a lot of things happen
fast, uh, and unexpectedly.
That's always a challenge.
Otherwise it's really nodifferent than any other
(10:30):
business, uh, except obviouslythe, the profile of it.
One of the, the really funthings is because we run the fan
clubs, we run a lot of, we do alot of customer service.
We work with the fans themselvesand they've come to know us.
I've actually been at showswhere I'm trying to help
somebody or see somebodystruggling with something in, in
the ticket line, and I'll talkto them and say, I'm Lee from
BubbleUp.
Can I help?
They go, oh my God, you're fromBubbleUp.
(10:50):
We love BubbleUp.
I told some folks the other day,I'm like, how often is it that
people know the, the agency thatdoes the website of their
favorite artist?
Russel (10:57):
Probably next to never.
Lee (10:58):
That's a testament to the customer care folks.
My business partner, his dad wasa mechanic who, uh, auto
mechanic in small town Arkansaswho really put a, a focus on
taking care of customers.
That's what has driven us.
We'll go above and beyond to tryto take care of customers.
We have a saying, pick up thephone.
Don't just send an email, pickup the phone, and we'll do that
with fans as well.
That's sort of the through line,through everything that we do
and that's what's helped us havethis connection with fans where
(11:20):
they know who we are.
Russel (11:21):
Okay.
And then just more curiosity inthis line of work, similarities
and differences is, do you kindof have a, a tried and true
recipe of, generally speaking,all musicians need to have this,
this, and this?
Or is it just so very uniquebased upon the, the musician
themselves and their, and, andthe fan base and everything is a
completely new recipe when, whenyou're looking at it across the
(11:42):
board?
Lee (11:42):
I think it runs, it runs the gamut.
It's different for every artistdepending on their situation,
but it's also constantlyevolving.
Where we were 10 years ago or 15years ago, where you'd say your
website needs to be this bigevolved thing where they can
find information abouteverything.
Now of course, this, it feelslike every social, um, network
is its own outpost where youwanna push information and maybe
(12:02):
the website is more of a hub.
It's constantly adjusting andconstantly having to figure out
what works for each artist andtheir needs.
Do they have a huge fan base?
Are they a legacy artist thathas a huge discography in which
case we're going on?
We're gonna want to allow fansthat may have just discovered
them to dive deeper on thewebsite, but at the same time,
you know, as I like to say, uh,you know, a, a really expensive
website isn't gonna make peoplego there.
(12:23):
Just'cause you build it doesn'tmean they come.
It's an important tool, but notthe only tool in the toolbox.
One challenge that is different,I forgot about the music
business is you don't get, uh,in a lot of the corporate world
except maybe the Super Bowl, Iguess.
If we're doing something for theAcademy of Country Music and
they announce it on television,um, that puts quite a, quite a
website strain on theinfrastructure.
We've gotten really good atlearning how to handle that, but
(12:44):
uh, the first three times arescary.
Russel (12:45):
Do a lot of server scaling there at, uh, at a
BubbleUp.
Lee (12:48):
A lot of service scaling, a lot of, uh, you know, predictive
stuff and a lot of, a lot ofstress testing in advance'cause
there is nothing like a TV hit.
Russel (12:55):
Gosh.
I know we had some experienceslike that, so we worked with the
Dallas Morning News and ifthere's a big major Dallas blow
up, we had to do a lot of that,but I can't imagine just on a
right, on a regular, somewhat, Idon't know if constant basis is
the word, but, uh, a regularbasis.
They're getting a lot of press,so I can see where that's a
quite a skill for you guys.
Lee (13:12):
It's easy for us all to, to criticize when your, you know,
your favorite ticketing sitegoes down.
But I think any of us in thisbusiness know how hard it's to
keep those things up whenyou're, you know, everybody in
the world is going to the exactsame place at the exact same
time.
Russel (13:25):
Refreshing it a thousand times, which is exponentially
multiplying, the people there.
That's fascinating.
I'm curious if you've got thisanswer to this one, obviously
very tied and rooted in themusic biz, little fame yourself,
it sounds like, as a businessand an agency, which is a really
cool thing.
What's, like, your biggestsuccess story of like, oh man,
that, that was really cool.
We did a really cool thingthere.
Lee (13:45):
I think there's a couple of them.
Number one was Live FromDarryl's House.
We actually won a Webby forthat, which was pretty exciting.
Just creating something thatpeople talk about still to this
day.
It's just neat to sort of havethat legacy out there.
One of the other fun things wedid was, uh, Jimmy Buffett
wanted to do a show where heplayed a bunch of songs, um,
that he doesn't always play.
We actually did an onlinecontest where fans could vote
(14:05):
for them, um, of all, and hemade this long list.
He rehearsed a crazy amount of,uh, time to learn all these
songs again.
Then we did a show in Key WestFlorida.
At first Jimmy wanted to selltickets for$5 a piece, you had
to show up and buy them.
It's a small 300 seat theater.
We try to explain to Jimmy thatyou can't do that if you're
Jimmy Buffett because too manypeople will show up and not near
enough will get in.
(14:25):
We ended up giving away, uh, all300 tickets.
He did this, this great show, wecall it the Key West Set List
Show, where he played a bunch ofsongs he doesn't normally play,
told stories to an intimateaudience of 300 people, and then
we live streamed it to almost ahundred thousand at the exact
same time for free.
It was just a really sort of aneat, iconic kind of an event
that we got to do.
I think the other success storywas really the pandemic.
(14:45):
A lot of what we do revolvesaround the touring world, um,
and fan clubs are drivenprimarily by ticket sales.
When the pandemic hit, there wasnot a lot of that going on.
As a business, we pivoted todoing live streams.
I personally ended up runningthree or 400 live streams over
the course of that pandemic, uh,and our entire team would work
all day long.
Then at night they'd all showback up online after dinner and
we would do customer service andrun live streams.
That was quite the adventure aswell, especially, uh.
(15:07):
when you're doing stuff for,like, Foo Fighters.
We had one where we weren't surewe were gonna get a satellite
feed for the internet even 20minutes beforehand.
It was a lot of fun.
I'm really proud of the teamthat we have, that we got
through that.
A lot of crazy stories at times.
Russel (15:18):
I'm just even trying to run through like the arsenal in
my mind of just all the thingsyou gotta be ready and prepared
for and really build in as acapability.
You're part PR, part, you know,social media gurus, part, part a
lot, server scalers.
That couldn't have been an easyprocess to bake all those
capabilities at a, at a scalablelevel into the business.
Give us some insight on what'syour, what's your secret sauce
(15:41):
and magic there?
Lee (15:41):
We started out fairly small just doing the fan communities,
which is mostly a lot of coding,and then obviously the customer
service component.
As the industry has changed andas social media has changed, um,
we've just sort of, we've, we,we're very good at adapting.
We've managed to find the talentthat we need to find in order
to, to supplement the areasthat, that we're lacking in or
that we need to be, be strongin.
I always like to say I don't, Idon't wanna be the smartest
(16:03):
person in the room.
I love hiring people who are waysmarter than me, um, from the
music days.
I called it my bass player rule.
I don't want a bass player whereI can say, play this, this, and
this, because then it's onlygonna be as good as I can play,
which is not very good.
I want a bass player that blowsme away so that when I say, give
me something in this feel, um,they give me some great ideas.
And that's what we've done is,is really try to find the right
people, talented people,multidisciplined people who can
(16:25):
do a lot of different skills,uh, and who are able to keep up
with the pace that we're, we'reworking at.
Russel (16:30):
How many folks does it take to make this whole
operation work to where you'reat today?
Lee (16:33):
Right now we're, we're just over 50.
We've got three offices, so onedown in Houston, one up here in
New England, and then one inNashville, Tennessee.
It runs the gamut from hardcorebackend developers, custom app
developers, data analysts.
Marketers, folks buyingkeywords, uh, Google ads.
That's obviously not my strengthas you can tell because I don't
even know the nomenclature, um,designers, uh, and a whole bunch
(16:55):
of customer service folks, uh,and ongoing account maintenance
folks who will, who will dealwith our customers on a
day-to-day basis.
Because I'm sure much like theagency stuff you do, you get a
customer in the door, you buildthe website, you get them set
up.
That's usually just thebeginning of the relationship.
We've got artists that we'vebeen working with for, for 10
years plus where we've gonethrough multiple album cycles,
multiple managers, and sothere's always something new
(17:15):
coming up that we've gottaadjust a website for, adjust a
social strategy for, um, just alot always going on.
Russel (17:21):
Like you said, 20, it's a 24/7 biz.
Somehow, some way you've gottahave a, something in place to
handle that.
You mentioned three differentlocations.
One makes total sense, maybeeven two makes total sense.
But why the, why the locationsthat you have, just in case it's
not as common or, or intuitiveas I might think?
Lee (17:36):
When we first started, it was just my business partner and
myself.
He lives in Houston, uh, and Ilived up here in New England and
I had a young daughter and hesaid, I'm never gonna make you
move.
I've held him to that.
I've got my design team up herein New England.
But uh, Houston is probably ourbiggest office.
That's a lot of our marketingteam, our marketing folks there,
and also our technology folks.
The, uh, backend coders and allof that.
Then we have Nashville, becauseNashville, the music business in
(17:58):
Nashville is really a smalltown, uh, and having a presence.
We've got a building right onMusic Row.
You almost need to be in town inorder to, to do business there.
We've been there, um, I thinkover, over 10 years, 15 years
now.
Russel (18:08):
On Music row even.
You're just right in the thickof things there.
Lee (18:11):
we are.
Russel (18:12):
I'll quit, uh, stargazing into this awesome
life you're leading.
Lee (18:15):
I love talking about it, man.
It's funny sometimes.
When you're knee deep in adeadline, it's easy to lose
sight of what it is you're doingand, and how cool what you're
doing is.
And it's not often until I'll gointo a, a, a, a store somewhere
and I'll look at the, theshelves of, of the music section
and be like, oh, we work withthem, we work with them, we work
with them.
It's nice to have a chance toreflect and have some
perspective on, on what it is wedo and how lucky we are to do
(18:35):
it.
Russel (18:36):
I remember that feeling when we first started getting
some, more prominent companiesin the Dallas area and like, you
go buy billboards or right, bein a conversation and someone
would be talking about, youknow, this particular business
or whatever, and it's like, ohyeah, we built the website for
them.
It's a pretty cool feeling.
I can only imagine what it, whatit's like in, in your world as
well.
We know your roots into theagency per se, but how is your
(18:56):
role in what you're doing andyour focus, how has that evolved
over time
Lee (19:02):
I liken it to getting an MBA on the job.
I never went to business school,but I feel like I've learned so
much.
I never envisioned myselfmanaging a team of people.
I've gotten to the point nowwhere I feel like my primary job
is getting work done throughothers and, and helping tear
down the barriers that they runinto.
When my team runs into an issue,I'm the guy that tries to solve
it, to keep them moving again.
I feel like it's, it's really inservice to my team, um, is, is
(19:24):
how I approach most days, andit's a little bit everything.
Today I was on several designcalls, a couple internal
meetings.
We're trying to problem solve achallenge we came up with in one
project, you know, what's ourbest way around this?
And then also working on pushingforward some designs with the
team, reviewing those andproviding my input.
I joke that I'll touch in thecourse of a month, 40 or 50
different projects.
Which makes, uh, timekeepingreally a pain in the butt for
(19:44):
me, but it's, uh, it's fun.
I don't get bored.
It's very rare that I get to sitdown and work on one thing for
six or eight hours, but I, Idon't know that I'd have it any
other way.
Russel (19:52):
And you're still loving every minute of it, or is, like,
you see that settling downanytime soon?
What does that look like?
Lee (19:58):
No, I absolutely love it.
I tell you, we, we just had aholiday party down in Houston
for, for the team down there.
What makes it great is we've gotthis amazing group of people
that, um, you know, I joke I'dhang out with, even if I wasn't
working with them, and that,that means that when we go
through these challengestogether, we have rough days or,
or different things.
It's great to be surrounded bypeople that you just like and
admire, um, and are, and justthey're all really, really
(20:18):
bright.
It's a pleasure to get to dothat every day, so whatever I
can do to help them.
Russel (20:22):
It often points back in so many of these conversations I
have with folks of justfundamentals, right?
We're not often missing somebig, miraculous element or piece
to this business, but it'sabout, you know, knowing exactly
who you can be best, mostvaluable for.
Doing all the things from serverscaling to make sure we deliver
that value and deliver it in atimely quality like manner.
(20:42):
And then be a servant leader andtake care of the challenges,
remove obstacles for our team.
It's those basic fundamentals itsounds like you've, you've
gotten really well into yourbusiness.
Lee (20:51):
I think that technology is easy to get lost in all of the
tools that we use, but to yourpoint, the, the fundamentals,
the simple, what we're here todo is solve, is solve problems,
especially for our customers.
That problem is gonna bedifferent for every time.
We both, I'm sure, know agenciesthat always have a one size fits
all solution, uh, but as weknow, businesses and musicians
and everybody else, they allhave unique, slightly unique
(21:11):
problems, and we need to figureout which collection of these
tools is best for that.
But it comes down to justlistening, you know, listening
and being attentive and takingcare of them.
Russel (21:19):
There's a Seth Godin quote that's really resonating
with me lately, and I dunno ifI've even brought this on the
podcast before.
We don't find customers for ourproducts.
We find products for ourcustomers, and if we have a
group of people we're servingwell, we can always be answering
that question.
That's really the key to a goodbusiness.
Sounds like you guys have reallyembodied that notion.
Maybe you gave that quote toSeth Godin, I don't know.
Lee (21:39):
No, that wasn't me.
But, uh, Seth and these quotes,I've got some from him.
It's hard to keep that focus onthe customer.
Sometimes it's very easy to getdistracted by all of the cool
technology, but we have toremember again, the technology
is just the means to the end.
Fundamentally, we need to solvethe customer's problem.
We need to help them feel goodabout the solution.
What collection of tools we usefor that almost doesn't matter
as long as it does the job.
Russel (21:59):
Don't let the tools get in the way of the end goal and
the value.
Good takeaways there.
Just given what you do, yougotta keep your eye on the
horizon, what are things youhave to pay attention to that
when you're looking at thefuture of the biz and those you
serve.
Lee (22:12):
I think we have to look at how, how fans are going to
interact with musicians and howthey're going to consume music.
When I first started playingiTunes wasn't a thing.
Then it became a thing.
We all had to learn how to dothat.
Now apparently nobody buys CDs,but I still have a very large CD
collection of Lee Totten's CDs.
I'm hoping they'll come back invogue, like finals someday.
It's constantly evolving.
(22:32):
We are always doing our best totry to look around corners or at
least be aware of what thechanges may be.
I think that's true even in thenon-music business.
Are we gonna be going to moreheadless CMSs?
Are we gonna be going to more,um, PWA type applications for,
for the web?
Is a website going to be asintegral as it used to be?
Or are we gonna wanna push thatcontent across all of the
socials?
Are all the socials even gonnabe there after next month?
(22:54):
Who knows?
We just do our best to try to,to, to read a lot and stay up on
the trends.
And try to predict what's gonnahappen next.
I don't know that any of us canpredict accurately, but I think
at least having some ideas andsome game plans in your mind of
what you wanna do next, uh, is agood way to be prepared for
whatever comes up.
Russel (23:08):
We can't predict a future, but we can look around
the corner and, and keep oureyes open.
As is my Homer Simpson versionof what you shared.
Lee (23:16):
Much like the Homer Simpson simulcast last night, did you
watch that?
Russel (23:18):
I saw it pop up for me and I didn't watch it.
I did you watch, how was that?
Lee (23:22):
I watched a little bit of it.
Again, as a technology geek, Iwas just impressed with how they
pulled that off, where they'retaking the actual football game
input and converting it tocharacters and adding their own
Simpson esque background to it.
In a little bit of a delay, butit was still pretty impressive
to see.
Russel (23:37):
Why didn't I watch this?
My wife loves the Mannings andso I think she pushed me to
watch the Manning cast insteadof the, the Simpsons cast.
But I should have.
Lee (23:44):
That's a great example though of like, look how many
different ways now we canconsume a football game.
You would assume you would justwatch the broadcast, but now we
can watch the Mannings talkabout the game in their own
unique way.
And I think, you know, again,the world is constantly changing
and we, our job's to try to keepup with whatever the consumers
want.
Russel (23:59):
It is so true.
I've gotten caught up lately andI'm having trouble getting all
the Cowboys games here, butfirst when I wanna watch a game,
watch, I say, uh, especially theNFL that I don't have access to
and I'm not, I'm just at thispoint I'm not gonna get Sunday
ticket.
I'll watch like the live streamof someone watching the game,
giving kind of a, a secondarycommentary.
It's even pulled me in whenthey're saying like, you know,
you know, type one for atouchdown or whatever, first
(24:21):
down, something I never thoughtI would do, but here I am
interacting with this randomperson on YouTube that's, uh,
live streaming the, uh, game orlive, live commenting the game,
I guess is a better way to putit.
Lee (24:30):
It's always interesting too, how as the technology
evolves, it has all of theseunintended consequences.
On the surface it's like, great.
In the evening, if I have sometime, I've got 150 different
channels that I can watch, uh,entertainment on.
The hard part is trying tofigure out which of those 150
channels actually has what Iwant.
There's no centralized sourceanymore, where in the old days,
you could open up a TV guide andthe 33 channels that you had, I
(24:53):
would tell you what was there.
I feel like we're doing a lot ofthat these days, even with the
internet, which is, you know,oh, here's this new rule, or
here's this new law, or here'sthis new way of doing things.
How do we adapt in order to keepup with that?
Russel (25:04):
I was telling someone this recently, I, I missed the
days when, when something cameon at a set time.
Generally, if you didn't watchit that time, you were gonna be
screwed for a good long whileuntil it came on on VHS or A DVD
or whatever.
But I love the efficiency thatthat caused in my life of,
right?
We've gotta have dinner done andall these things done so we can
be on our couch watchingwhatever we're watching at 7:00
(25:24):
PM.
No pausing.
I'm missing that in my life.
Lee (25:26):
We've struggled with that on the music side of things
because there's a differencebetween say a live webcast at a
certain time with an artistwhere it's a shared experience
and everybody is in chat,experiencing it in real time
together, versus an on demandconcert where people are
watching it at all differenttimes, you don't have that
shared experience.
We found that, that trying tobring those shared experiences,
(25:47):
a real event, uh, to the onlinespace is a lot more meaningful
for the fans and for theartists.
But it's, it's hard in anon-demand world when folks wanna
watch it when they watch it.
Russel (25:56):
My wife is very into Taylor Swift as many people are
today, and she was livestreaming the, the her last
tour, concert, I guess is whatI'm hearing, uh, on Sunday.
She was just totally enthralled,or when my daughter, when she
lived or died by One Directionand, and she would watch, she
would stay up all hours of thenight watching the live stream
of their concerts.
I don't think she'd beeninterested in in a recording or
(26:18):
anything along those lines.
It was being there in the momentwas very important.
Lee (26:21):
We did a lot of, so Jimmy, Jimmy Buffett was unique, but he
was very forward thinking.
At the time, he was selling outa lot of concert tours.
His idea was, I'm gonnabroadcast every concert live for
free on the radio.
And then in the later years weevolved that into we're gonna do
a live video broadcast of everyconcert free.
In the traditional, you know,wisdom in the music business is,
well, you don't give it away forfree'cause then people won't buy
(26:41):
tickets.
But people would show up indroves to watch these things.
It became almost a secondarycommunity.
You have folks in California andyou have folks in New England
and you have folks in Texas allgathered together at seven
o'clock to watch the Jimmy Showfrom wherever he was and they're
having virtual cocktailstogether.
It was a real sense of communityand it was a creating a, an
actual event in a virtual world.
(27:02):
That was a pretty cool thing todo.
Russel (27:03):
I love that thought.
I imagine we can, we cannavigate that to even an agency
world of build the audiencefirst.
Not about what we can alwayssell to them or get them to buy,
but build the community and theaudience and then they'll,
they'll buy whatever they needto buy.
I don't think you have to worryabout money if you really create
that, that tie and that thatcommunity with folks.
Such a great lesson.
Lee (27:23):
Give them meaningful experiences with that brand or
with that company.
Make those interactions meansomething.
Make it something that'simportant to them.
I think if you do that, you'vegot customers for life at that
point, you know?
Russel (27:33):
There's the takeaway, there's the mic drop moment,
right?
As an agency, if we wanna pullthis back to an agency, is how
many meaningful experiences areyou creating that don't come on
the other side of a transactionor if the expectation of a
transaction?
And that's not necessarilyalways the easiest.
You could argue a musician cancreate that more easily than an
agency.
But if you think creativelyenough, I bet there's plenty of
(27:53):
opportunities to to do exactlywhat you said there.
Lee (27:55):
I think it can be as simple as the customer service
experience.
Even if I bought something, if Irun into an issue but I have an
amazing customer serviceexperience.
With that company, that's gonnamake me more a fan of that
company.
I'm like, alright.
They get it.
They take care of theircustomers.
Whereas if I have a badexperience, maybe next time I
would choose a different brand.
I've had both sides of that coinrecently with different
companies, uh, and one of themwas phenomenal.
(28:16):
People were attentive andlistened and I could actually
reach a person, which was great,and they solved my problem in a
way that was, was helpful.
It made me think, all right,these guys are, are, they're
doing business the right way.
Those are the folks I wannaspend my money with.
Russel (28:27):
I dunno.
Now you're giving an idea like,should every agency
intentionally screw up?
Lee (28:31):
No, no, I do not recommend that.
Russel (28:33):
And then just do a awesome job on the backside of
of cleaning up the mess orwhatever?
It's not weird if it works.
Could be a thing.
Lee (28:39):
I don't know.
You know what?
The unintentional mistakes arebad enough, so I'm.
Russel (28:43):
To the point, you're gonna get your opportunity.
Just remember that's a greatpoint of, uh, just, just serve
extremely well.
Probably any business out therecan get their best review is not
when just things go nice andsmooth and easy, but when, when
something otherwiseunpredictable or bad happens and
you follow up in an amazing way,great lesson.
Lee (29:00):
I have become a lot more empathetic.
When you get the email thatcomes out after the initial
email from a company that says,oops, we made a mistake.
I'm like, yep, totally get that.
One time I sent an email out,um, to a rather massive, um,
company list.
It was, uh, probably in the600,000 range.
I sent a promotional email outand I accidentally had it come
(29:21):
from my business partner's emailaddress instead of the corporate
email address.
He was able to get all of thosebounces responses and was unable
to use his email for two weeks,I think.
Russel (29:31):
Oh man.
Maybe that was a nice littlevacation moment for him.
Or I imagine stressful.
Lee (29:34):
We tell our devs now to make the important buttons
bright red so that we don'tclick the bright red buttons.
Russel (29:39):
There's a reason why, uh, uh, the, the military puts
the, in the movies, at least, Iguess, I don't know what it
looks like in the real world, isyou gotta use the key and
unlocking all that.
Lee (29:47):
Got the plastic over it.
Russel (29:48):
Exactly.
We kind of talked about thefuture of technology and, and
the business itself, but, or Iguess you could say the industry
itself.
But when you look at thebusiness, what's the future look
like for you?
What's the five year, 10 yearplan as they like to say?
Lee (30:01):
I think for us, obviously continuing to try to stay ahead
of the trends, but, but it'sinteresting to see how the tools
are changing.
AI is obviously, I think, gonnabe a, a big influence on all of
us in terms of how we dobusiness.
I'm not necessarily scared ofit, but I think it's a matter of
how do we use it mosteffectively to solve the
problems that we need to solve.
We've already seen it inexamples of where, you know,
hey, I need a script that doesthis.
(30:22):
And we can generate that with AIthat's pretty close as opposed
to having to start from scratchto generate that code.
Certainly with, with images, um,you know, a lot of the stock
photo agency now is, are buildbuilding AI right into the stock
photo thing.
If you have something that'sclose to the image you want, but
it's not quite exactly right.
In the old days, of course, I'dhave to hand it to a designer
and make him go, you know, takethat dock out and put a boat
(30:44):
there instead.
Now AI will do that for us.
I think it's, you know, thefuture is how do we better
leverage these tools and do itin a way that, that still has
the integrity that we're lookingfor.
Russel (30:52):
There you go.
Just keep doing what you'redoing.
Wonderful stuff.
Last big question for you, Leethen, is are entrepreneurs born
or are they made?
Lee (30:59):
Nature versus nurture?
I think it's a combination.
I think that you can have peoplewho have the predisposition, uh,
and the, and the talent to doit, but may not have the
skillset.
I think you can also have peoplewho have the skillset, but maybe
don't have, don't have thattalent or the drive.
I think it's a matter ofrecognizing early on that, that
being an entrepreneur issomething you wanna do and have
a passion for.
Although I'm not sure any of ustruly know the, the likes of
(31:22):
that journey and the ups anddowns that come with it.
And then I think it's a matterof, of learning as much as you
can.
Like I said, I don't, I don'tever wanna be the smartest
person in a room.
I try to learn from everysituation because there are
always areas that I can improveand get better at.
Learning from the folks who'vedone it before and seeing how
they navigate the, the unsteadywaters of being an entrepreneur.
I think it's a combination ofboth.
I think it's something thatwe're born with, but then I
(31:42):
think it's a learned thing.
I joke about it with music aswell.
The guitar players who thinkthey're the best usually aren't,
uh, and some of the bestmusicians I've ever met are
still humble and, and recognizethose that are greater.
The moment that we feel like weknow it all, we probably don't.
I always try to keep thatbeginner's mind of, you know,
let's, let's learn what we canfrom this and, and always try to
be getting better every day.
Long answer.
Russel (32:01):
Beautiful answer though, because I mean, I almost want to
create a whole nother podcastepisode with so many things you
said there, but I'll, I'll, I'lljust pinpoint just, you know,
the learning process and, andthe gap between maybe where we
are and where we want to be is alot of learning and, and not
just even surface level learningLike you said, who, who, who can
you pick it up from?
What book?
Can you read?
(32:21):
And just context and, and buildaround whatever you're trying to
solve.
That is the name of this game,uh, among many other wonderful
things you said.
Lee (32:28):
I liken it to when you're learning new software, which I
mean, again, I'm, I'm of an agewhere everything was learning
new software because it wasalways something new coming out.
The difference between those whofigure it out and those who
don't is often not how smartthey are, but how persistent
they are at pushing throughthat.
Of course now we have a ton ofresources online to be able to
find these things out, but it's,it's something I tell my kids
(32:48):
all the time.
Look, when you're doingsomething new, when you're
trying something you've nevertried before, there are going to
be challenges.
There are going to be momentswhen you go, why am I even doing
this?
But if you persist through that,um, that's usually when you get
to the good stuff.
It's just a matter of, of beingpersistent enough to get through
that.
Russel (33:02):
You'd think I would remind thyself because I want to
get into pickleball, but I'mjust so darn intimidated by, by
my lack of pickleball skillsthat, and there's some rough
folks in there that I'm just notsure if I'm gonna willing to
overcome some of that learningcurve.
Lee (33:15):
My 17-year-old took me out the other day and humbled me
quickly, so yes.
Russel (33:20):
I'm worried about getting humbled by like an
80-year-old.
But not to mention, I'lldefinitely wanna get humbled by
a 17-year-old.
That's a me problem.
If people wanna know more aboutBubbleUp, where can they go?
Lee (33:28):
BubbleUp.com, uh, everything is up there.
Russel (33:30):
Easy enough.
There you go.
Wonderful journey.
Thank you so much for taking thetime to share and giving us a
little glimpse into thestarstruck life of working for
some great musicians, but somany great lessons learned along
the way, including thefundamentals and just serving
those you serve in a compelling,thought driven, value driven
way.
So many great takeaways againtoday, and I really appreciate
(33:52):
you taking the time to sharethat with us, Lee.
Lee (33:53):
I wanna thank you as well.
It's fun because I feel like alot of times as agencies we're
so isolated in working on theprojects with the clients that
we have.
But we all do the same magictrick and it's nice to be able
to talk to other folks who knowhow to do that magic trick too,
and share stories, horrorstories and adventures and
everything else we've all beenthrough to get to this point.
(34:14):
We hope you've enjoyed thisepisode of An Agency Story
podcast where we share realstories of marketing agency
owners from around the world.
Are you interested in being aguest on the show?
Send an email topodcast@performancefaction.com.
An Agency Story is brought toyou by Performance Faction.
(34:34):
Performance Faction offersservices to help agency owners
grow their business to 5 milliondollars and more in revenue.
To learn more, visitperformancefaction.com.
We were brought on to do a live stream for the Foo Fighters
from the Roxy in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles, as we know, doesnot have great cell coverage,
(34:57):
um, and the venue did not haveparticularly great internet, so
they brought a satellite truckin, in order to hook up to the
internet for us to do this livestream for a lot of people, a
lot of people had already signedup for this live stream.
I got a call about 30 minutesbefore the stream was supposed
to start from the guy in thesatellite truck, and he said,
everybody's bugging me.
I can't get a lock on asatellite.
There's too many buildings andthey keep interrupting me.
(35:18):
Having been through more than myshare of crises before, I said,
lock your door and tell them tocall me.
You work on finding a satellite.
We've learned that you can'tsimultaneously fix a problem and
update people on the problem.
Let the people that can fix it,go and fix it.
I'll take the heat from theclients in terms of what's going
on, and you just work on findinga solution.
That's what he did.
He locked his trailer door, uh,and about 10 minutes before it's
(35:39):
supposed to go live, he finallyfound a satellite and all went
well, and, uh, nobody knows how,how frightened we were in the
process.
Russel (35:44):
I guess it's not Dave Grohl banging down your door of
trying to get answers on this,but.
Lee (35:49):
I've had a few calls from musicians.
Once in a while.
Some are very involved.
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