Building a Trader Education Business with John Carter, Founder of Simpler Trading

I've been wanting to talk to John Carter on here for awhile for a few reasons.

First, because John founded Simpler Trading and built it into one of the top trader education companies in the industry.

Second, because John's approach to building the business has always steered away from the hype side of promotion.

Third, because he exited a large portion of the business when he sold 2/3rds of it to a private equity company.

Basically, he's carved his own path through FinPub and built a unique business.

In this episode we go talk through both John's history of building the business and what he sees customers responding to in today's market environment.

FinPub Pro is produced by The Financial Marketing Summit, the #1 networking and marketing conference for financial newsletter publishers, trader educators, and digital financial media.

John Newtson, host and founder of The Financial Marketing Summit can be reached via LinkedIn at John Newtson

Episode Transcript

John Newtson (00:02):
All right, hey everyone, I'm excited because we
have John Carter here, who hasbeen one of the guests that I've
wanted to have for quite awhile now.
So, john, thanks for being here.
Yeah, awesome, it's great to behere, john.
So anyone who doesn't maybehasn't been in the industry very
long may not be as familiarwith you as everybody else
that's been in the industry fora long time.
You found a simpler trading.

(00:23):
You've got one of the strongest, I would say, trader education
groups in the business, in theindustry you have, I'd say
you're one of the groups.
You've charted kind of your owncourse, whereas a lot of people
have kind of tried to copyeveryone else and get kind of
overwhelmed by saying, hey, thisis what Agora is doing or this

(00:43):
group is doing, and you havebuilt, I think, a very stable,
strong, healthy business, kindof doing it your way.
And so that's what I want tokind of dig into is to start off
with is let's just kind ofquickly walk through your
history of Simpler Training andhow you got to where you are

(01:05):
today.

John Carter (01:05):
Now, Sure, and I'll do.
You know.
I guess you know there's a longversion and the short versions.
I'll kind of do the short plusversion, just for, you know,
people that don't know and Ialways found, starting off too,
it was always interestingfinding out, like, what are
other people doing?
Because I just didn't know.
And the way I'd started was, youknow, when I was, when I was in
college, I was trading.

(01:26):
I got the bug from mystepfather who's a broker, so I
was doing options stuff likethat.
I had no idea what I was doing.
I went to an investor'sbusiness daily conference.
I bought a stock called Iomegaand this was gosh.
This was dating me, it was inthe 95 or something like that.
But this is a stock that went.
I remember it went from like 5to 60.

(01:48):
And then I decided to sellcovered calls on it and then it
went to 100.
So I just basically locked in aprofit, got out and split
adjusted.
Six months later it was $300.
The good news is that I madeabout $100,000 on that, and in
college I was being amultimillionaire at that point.
But had I held on, it wouldhave been something like a $1.5

(02:12):
million trade, and so thatalways got me into this whole
idea of what's that fine linebetween trading and being
patient and stuff like that.
So, anyway, as I'm goingthrough corporate world, I'm
realizing that that's not for me.
So, anyway, as I'm goingthrough corporate world, I'm
realizing that that's not for me, learned a lot about running a
business, but I just realizedthat it wasn't a thing.
And so, as I was trading for acouple of years on my own kind

(02:33):
of ups and downs, I startedthinking like, well, gosh,
wouldn't this be cool.
I'm kind of just sitting heretalking to my arowana.
So I just started posting stuffonline and I remember, like on
Yahoo Finance, started postingstuff online.
And I remember, like on yahoofinance, and I remember, um, I
decided to get a website and itcost me twenty five thousand
dollars to put together thiscold fusion website and it took
six months, you know, fordeveloper to build.

(02:53):
You know, pretty hilariousconsidering all the stuff that
you get going today.
So, anyway, fast forward.
Um, I think, uh, for those ofyou that know hubert centers, he
and I partnered up and that wasa great partnership for gosh
four or five years, and then wekind of went our separate ways.
But he was, we learned.
I think we learned a lot fromeach other and we worked really
well together during that time,during that kind of sweet spot

(03:26):
along the way.
So we just really focused on twothings.
It was subscriptions andclasses, and that was kind of
our thing and I remember it'slike gosh if we could just get
100 subscribers.
And the whole idea was that Iknew from my experience that
there was a lot of people outthere that were working that
were either bored of their jobsor hated their jobs and they're
just like what I wanted.
And so I was trying to providewhat I wanted.
And when I was in corporateAmerica, it would have been so

(03:46):
amazing to have someone to saylike, hey, we're buying calls on
Micron right now, versus justkind of like I guess you know,
for lack of a better term, I hadno idea what I was doing for a
long time.
So my goal was just to providethat service and to say, hey,
this is what we're doing.
This is what I'm doing Doesn'tmean it's going to work or not.
Here's an alert.

(04:07):
And at the time it was likeemail and it was great and it
caught on within I think thefirst year of business did
$100,000 that year, 3 yearslater had a nice business doing
a couple million dollars, and itwas me and like four other
people and it was great.
And so I think for backliterally seven or eight years,

(04:29):
I just would call it a lifestylebusiness.
And again, now I'll shortenthis a lot but then at some
point it's like okay, how do youturn this into a real business?
And from about 2013 to about2020, really focused on
expanding offerings.
Here's some options learningmore about digital marketing,

(04:50):
building out a team which ishard, and at its peak we got to
about 120 employees.
I found a great CEO withBrittany Burns and just really
had a stellar team, and that waswhat really facilitated us to
grow.
And then we did do an exit in2020.
I'm still I still own a thirdof the company, but I went from
being a majority owner to havinga third of the company and

(05:14):
that's been a learningexperience as well and just
seeing how different people viewthe business and stuff like
that.
So I mean that's kind of.
And then so the idea withSimpler Trading was simply like
I had built a platform, kind offor myself.
So what about other styles?
And so we'd have like, say,hubert Centers or Daniel Shea or
all these other folks therethat could come in and just they

(05:35):
would have a platform Insteadof.
I knew how hard it was to sitthere and you're doing all the
customer service, you're doingall the stuff and you're trying
to trade and you're trying toeducate, and that's hard.
And so the idea was like someonelike Danielle could just come
in and say, well, this is whatI'm doing and just plug them in,
and so that golden was not onlyserving traders out there but

(05:56):
serving I call them contentproviders, so that they had a
home as well.
And so that was always kind ofthe vision and you know it
turned into this.
You know, fun and wonderfulexperience.
And now, you know, here we arein 2024, having gone through, we
were just talking earlier, likeI, it seemed like it was 2019
and now it's 2024.
Like that was a really fastmoment of time.
That was kind of a blur.
And now here we are in themarkets.

(06:17):
You know are the same butthey're a lot different.
And you know what are peoplelooking for these days?

John Newtson (06:22):
Yeah.
So I want to get to that, but Iwant to keep.
I want to kind of.
There's a couple of things thatyou know in your story that I
wanted to kind of dig into alittle bit more.
One is before the exit, whenyou were looking to expand and
everything, I always kind ofthought you had a very unique
problem, right.
And the problem is is you'rekind of the Bradley Cooper of
Finbub, in the sense that he's atriple threat, right, he can

(06:43):
sing, he can dance, he can act.
I remember like so you've gotlike an amazing real track
record that you can show.
I remember you would be able togo on a webinar and you could
actually pitch which a lot oftraders can't do very well like
live pitching.
You're very good at that andwhile you were pitching you were
able to trade and you wouldoften be making money trading

(07:05):
live in the webinar while you'repitching.
Like that is not a common setof skills and you're extremely
personable, like you know what Imean Like you build a
relationship with people verywell.
So like didn't you have likestruggles when you're adding
other people, that yourmarketing model works super well
for you and it's hard to kindof like follow your act.

John Carter (07:29):
I would say no, that's interesting and I think
it's.
You know it's different foreveryone, everybody, and I think
it depends on their backgroundand my background.
In high school I was really ingrowing up I was really into
sports.
So baseball, which was a lot ofhigh pressure situations, you
know it's bases are loaded threeand two.

(07:52):
I was a pitcher and then also Idid theater in high school, so
you got used to, you know, beingin front of a crowd and stuff
like that.
You know, totally random, right?
So so that just got me, youknow it was, it was.
It was this almost training forhigh stress situations, which at
the time, of course, I didn'tknow that I would be utilizing
that in webinars, but everybodyhas their own.
What I found is that, you knowis so if you're, if you're, have

(08:13):
services out there, the mostimportant thing is just kind of
you know it's.
If anything that, like theacting part gave me was like I
can, you know it's, it's reallyit's.
It's like look, this is stuff Iwant to share and maybe if you,
you know, if you did theater,you might be able to share it a
little bit more.
You know, I don't knowconcentratedly if that's the

(08:34):
right word.
But you, you know you, underwhat I learned in acting, has
how important it is to like, youknow you really got to be
focused, like, if you'recommunicating to an audience,
you have got to be a hundredpercent present with whatever
you know emotion or point thatyou're trying to get across, and
that just kind of camenaturally.
As I'm talking about trading,you know, if I want people to

(08:54):
understand what a squeeze is, ifI'm, like, you know, looking
away and mumbling a few lines,you know so I so, as I'm doing
that I really want people tounderstand like, look, this is
really important and it'simportant.
So that's my theory is how itworks.
But in working with people,what I've seen too is, you know
it's, if you're like having a,you know, being able to present,

(09:19):
well, it can help, but reallyit's the material.
So you know, if you're a greatpresenter and you got shitty
material, you know in the stuff,this isn't going to work, yeah,
it's not going to last.
But I've also seen if someonehas got really good stuff and
they don't necessarily have tobe really personal about it, but
they're just like, hey, this iswhat works for me Especially.
You know people appreciate thattoo, but I think it's.

(09:42):
But it is kind of a thing whereif you are going to go out there
and you know, put your hat onand represent you know yourself
out there to the world, you knowyou kind of want to do it in a
way that that it's that fineline, because it you know, it's
like I always joke it my lifewould be a lot easier if I was
just trading.
Right, you know it's the ideaof you know trading, posting a

(10:03):
trade, having to answer a lot ofquestions about a trade.
You know that after a whilethat kind of is like that can
get tiring, and so it's justkind of getting help with that,
and so it's that fine line ofyou know it's.
You know, look, if you'regetting into this business, part
of the appeal is wow, I couldyou know say you got to.
When I first started I was like,well, I'm trading like a
$50,000 account or $100,000account, but I've got another 10

(10:26):
or 15 grand a month coming infrom subscriptions.
That's great.
That means it gives you alittle cushion, you don't have
to worry about a job, and so Ithink that's the initial appeal.
But from there, the only wayCustomers vote with their
wallets and if you got good shit, they're going to pull out
their wallet and pay for itbecause you have stuff that's
helping them.
And if it's not helping themmake money, so why are they

(10:49):
there?
So I guess that's kind of along answer for people that come
on that if they're notpersonable, that's fine, but
really hone in on how is it whatyou're doing?
How has it made your lifebetter?
You've traded before, and if itwas really hard and stuff like
that, a lot of other people aregoing to experience that too.
So what are you doing?

(11:10):
That's making it easier ormaking it less emotional, you
know, making it less taxing, youknow, just just things like
that.

John Newtson (11:17):
Yeah, that makes sense and with that, like your
like, what's your product modellook like?
Um, when you say subscriptions,is it, is it a an educational
subscription?
Is it a trading service or isit any of a lot of courses?
Um, so what's your productmodel kind of look like?

John Carter (11:34):
yeah.
So there's a.
There's a couple differentthings.
So I would say, like our core,um, you know, we have called
what's called a simpler centralroom.
That's kind of our core roomand I would think think of that,
as you know, like the hub.
So here's the central, you know, literally, and we kind of
that's where everybody kind ofgoes initially and in there, you
know, I'll be in there.
We've also got, you know, adozen other traders that'll kind

(11:55):
of come through.
You know, it's almost like a TVstation, like from two to three
you're going to have trendy John, you know, from 10 to 11,
you're going to have Sam, and sowhat will happen is, as a
trader, they'll come in and theidea with that is that I'm a
strong believer that you got tofind what best fits your own
personality in trading, becausethere's a lot of different ways
to trade.
So do you like to scalp?

(12:18):
Do you feel better positiontrading, just finding that sweet
spot that you're not gettingtoo taxed on your emotions but
you're able to make a livingdoing it, and so by doing it
this way, then everybody kind ofgo in there and kind of get a
sense of you know who resonateswith them.
All right.
So that's a subscription Fromthere.
Though, if people reallyresonate with Henry, well,
henry's got a service.

(12:38):
Or if they resonate with DavidStarr, david's got a service.
You know, here's somethingthat's more Elliott Wave based
and here's something that's moreselling spreads, here's
something that's more aggressiveand directional in the futures
markets, so like with JR.
So the idea with that then isthere's a central subscription
and then from there there's allthese offshoots.
So I think we have about like10 different subscriptions, and

(13:01):
you know, and a lot of peopleyou know they get more than one
and things like that too.
And then from there, the twomain things are um, you know,
kind of education classes, it'slike hey here's, and not so much
um, here's an iron condor,because you can Google that it's
here's an iron condor, and thisis when you do it.
So you wait for these threethings to happen, and then this
is a much higher probabilitysetup to do an iron condor, and

(13:23):
so that's really just kind ofit's the when.
You know it's when is this anappropriate tool to use?
And so people, and that'ssomething I think is super
important.
And then from there, it's tools, just tools that can help, and
I've, you know things like.
You know, the squeeze issomething that I've known for,
like quick hits, and it's justthings that here's something

(13:52):
that makes trading easier and Ifind sometimes, because the
financial news can get confusing, I'd say bad news.
Is it good news?
Yesterday, meta releasedearnings and they're okay, but
it got annihilated, and so I seepeople ask questions about that
and it's like the news doesn'tmatter, it's totally irrelevant.
And so questions about that andit's like the news doesn't
matter, like it's totallyirrelevant, and so we kind of
have this joke.
It's like just kind of followthe pretty colors and that's,
you know where the tools andthings come in, the things that

(14:13):
we don't do, and this is more.
You know we used to do more liveevents and we haven't done
those and we maybe do one a yearnow, just because it's a
heavier lift.
We're so plugged in online, youknow, to actually, you know, go
somewhere, you know set up acomputer and all that kind of
stuff.
It's just easier to do itonline.
But it's also fun doing liveevents because you get to

(14:34):
actually interact with peopleand things like that too.
Yeah, um, and we used to domore one-on-one mentoring, but
again, that's kind of hard.
You know it's it's it got atsome point.
I got harder to do when we weresmaller.
That was that was easier to do.

John Newtson (14:46):
Yeah, and so you have.
You have quite a mix than aproduct that you have.
You know, the rooms, thesubscriptions, um, how many,
like how many tools do you thinkyou have at this point?

John Carter (14:55):
80,.
Uh, you know it's it's likeover the years.
So so there's as hey, here'ssome lines on a chart that plot
out the expected move in theseoptions over the next 10 days,
and that way you could visuallysee that, and so it could be
something like that A lot ofsupport and resistance.

(15:15):
It really comes down tomomentum oscillators and
triggers, and that's going to bea little different for day
trading on futures versus, say,swing trading on a daily chart,
and so it's just kind of findingthings that you know that work
best on those timeframes.

John Newtson (15:30):
Yeah, and I also noticed that, and you have a
fantastic copyright of CraigPerrine.

John Carter (15:36):
Yeah, Craig Perrine .

John Newtson (15:37):
Your copy approach is, I would say, sedate's not
the right word You're moreconservative, you're more
authentic.
I guess you're not doingbecause it doesn't seem to be as
much of the oh, here's a crazybig idea, um kind of promotional
stuff.
Um, it's much more, maybe that,maybe that's a function of
trading, um, the way that youoffer it in the education, but,

(16:01):
um, how do you think aboutpromotion?

John Carter (16:03):
um, yeah, it's.
You know it's a good question.
It would probably be easier ifwe did say two big promotions a
year and really spent monthsmapping it out and kind of more
of a big idea.
But I'd say our promotions aremore kind of nuts and bolts.
This is hey, we've got themarket.

(16:23):
The market has changed a littlebit.
It's a little bit more sideways.
Here's what's working best inthis market.
And so it's not necessarily likethis super exciting thing where
it's like you know you'll hearlike, oh my God, this $5 million
webinar.
But it can be, you know, it canbe, you know, break into the
seven.
You know the lower sevenfigures or six feet, mid six
figures, and and those are thoseare important because you know,

(16:46):
with something like that.
So I would say you know, whenyou have a company, you've got
overhead and stuff like that too.
But it's the.
I would say that thesubscriptions kind of pay for
the overhead.
And then you know anythingthat's above and beyond that.
It's going to be something likeclasses or mentorships or or
different things like that andit's, you know I go back and

(17:07):
forth because it's like we'vethought about different things
where it's like you know there'sthere's a dozen services we've
thought about launching that weultimately didn't, just because
the just because we know howmuch work it would be in terms
of you know, if we're going todo like, say, a scalping service
, all right, well, that meanssomeone's gonna have to be there
.
You know, if we're going to dolike, say, a scalping service,
all right, well, that meanssomeone's going to have to be
there, you know 24-7,.

(17:27):
You know we're going to have tohave a room manned almost 24-7
to capture the overnightsessions.
It's going to generate a lot ofquestions from people who are
newer, and so you kind of thinkthrough how, what's it going to
take to fulfill it too?
So swing trading is certainly alot easier to fulfill than that
.

(17:48):
But I think one of the thingsthat we do different than a lot
of people is that you know ouralert services are kind of live.
So as we're placing a trade oran alert, you know you might
have a thousand people in theroom all asking questions about
it, versus just kind of, youknow, shooting it out.
So it's harder work, but youknow people appreciate it, and
so I always try to think of youknow.
I try to remember myself when Iwas working in corporate
America.
You know what would have been anice service to have, um, you
know, an alert service.

(18:08):
Just by itself, is is okay.
But I remember like I'd havequestions like well, why, why
are you doing this?
You know what, what makes youthink this is attractive?
And um, so we try to.
You know, we try to do that aswell.

John Newtson (18:19):
Yeah, and to me it's.
It's almost seems like you havea cultural difference than some
other groups in the sense thata lot of times the publishers
will be somebody who was amarketer or a copywriter to some
degree first, and so they arethere.
You know, their first thoughtis the promotion, and sometimes
the editorial and the copy andthe analysts run second fiddle

(18:43):
to that editorial and the copyand the analysts um run second
fiddle to that um, whereasyou've definitely got an
approach of like your customerfirst, trader first, like what's
going to actually work.
So when you're talking aboutlike the like, just the issue of
like, oh well, to fulfill thiscorrectly we would need a
24-hour room and somebody inthere all the time.
Um, some other groups that I'veseen are well, you know, they
won't go that far.
They're like, be like, well, wecan sell this, how can we

(19:05):
cobble together a product thatis functional enough to sell?
And so you seem to have adifferent culture, and maybe
that's because you are the, the,you know an actual trader who
trades, and like your, your, butyour approach to it is, it
sounds to me, like it's tradingand you add marketing on top of

(19:26):
it, versus we are marketers whoare going to just choose a
trading product because we thinkwe can sell it.

John Carter (19:34):
Yeah, and that's a good distinction.
And there's pros and cons,because I know a lot of times
we'll put up ads that next towhat I would call more marketing
ads, and if someone's cominginto the market for the first
time and they see our ad next tosomebody else's, they're
probably going to go to somebodyelse's because it's a sexier ad
, it's 98% win rate and blah,blah, blah, blah.

(19:56):
And we find that a lot of timespeople come to us we're their
third or fourth service thatthey've tried and then they
finally feel like, oh my gosh,we got a home, you guys are
really trading, and things likethat.
And so there's pros and cons ofthat, because we kind of have
to, we're not going to get as,because we deliberately choose
what I would simply call reality, and the reality of trading is

(20:20):
nobody really knows what's goingto happen next.
There's setups that create aprobability, a higher
probability of one thinghappening over another, and I
think the latest kind of hotcraze right now is algos and
algorithms, which I thinkthere's some really good ones
out there.
It's it's the same thing interms of, yeah, algorithms are

(20:44):
going to work great in a certainmarket and then if the market
changes.
You know the algo dies and soyou've got to.
You know, if you're, if you'redoing that, you've just got to a
have enough market experienceto know that.
You know you got to changegears when that happens or be,
uh, this great algo that workedin an uptrend, you know, and
this whole business is built onit it'll just die if you don't
have experienced traders, and soI do think it's important that

(21:06):
you have.
You know people, even if you'rea marketer and you're like man
I've been trading for the lastyear.
This is awesome.
You know, for the love of God,bring someone on that's been
trading for 20 years.
You know they don't even haveto be a personality, but just so
you can kind of bounce ideasoff of them because they've seen
, you know, nothing that'shappening in the markets is
unique.
It's it's all happened before,and I think part of just having

(21:27):
been around a while is youreally just kind of get that
reality check.
And while it's not as sexy assome of the ads that are out
there, um, you know there's, uh,there's a definitely a segment
of the population that resonateswith okay, let's just keep it
real.
You know we're here to um, thiswas easy.
Everybody would be doing it.
So let's do this in a waythat's and it's so important to

(21:49):
me that you create a community.
Trading is a very isolating kindof a business.
A lot of times if you had a badday, you don't necessarily want
to tell your spouse about it,but you can tell the other
people in the room and they'llunderstand.
But I do think it's really just.
It's like if you're a scubadiver, you know, and you're, if
you're really passionate aboutscuba diving, you don't need

(22:09):
some glitzy brochure thing.
You're just kind of like ohyeah, I want to go.
You know, I've always wanted todive, I want to.
I always want to go diving inthe Philippines, you know, let's
.
Oh, here's a, here's a coolcompany.
You know that excuse me, sorryum yeah, is that long covid,

(22:32):
long covid effects?

John Newtson (22:34):
no thankfully, thankfully, um.
Well, actually I think, likethe on the issue of like oh, is
it the pros and cons of ofaggressive marketing.
Excuse me, sorry.
I think more and more peopleare starting to realize that you
build a better customer basewith kind of the less hyperbolic

(22:55):
approach to marketing, becauseyou have a lot of volatility, a
lot of things coming in.
But if you're trying to thinkof this in terms of long-term
value or lifetime value thecustomers who come in on who man
?
I burned out three other places.
They suck and I finally foundmy home that guy's probably

(23:16):
going to stick much longer.
I'm having a community building, building that customer base.
That's like actually there forthe things that you represent
and the culture that you have.
Like they're going to staylonger.
And I think that um and I'vetalked to a lot of people who
have been were either apublisher or one of the top two,
three marketers in the groupsthat were $200 million, $300

(23:39):
million, and almost all of themat this point are like I think
maybe $30 million to $50 millionis probably the right size for
a pub, not much bigger than that.

John Carter (23:50):
I would totally agree with that, because I think
to get to a couple hundredmillion you know you have talked
to businesses that have done it.
I mean we've always kind ofthat 30 to 50 million has always
been kind of a sweet spot.
And I think you know, to getbeyond that you do have to.
There's things that you have todo that you know, I think you
know are a little above andbeyond kind of what I would say

(24:11):
is like okay, we're, you know,you know are a little above and
beyond kind of what I would sayis like okay, we're, you know
we're traders and we're trading,um, and you know, and I think
that's something where you kindof feel that pressure of okay,
we got to come up with some bigidea and then all of a sudden,
you know it can be it can kindof start to veer towards snake
oil or it can start to veertowards you know you've got
you're either at.
The two things I've seen themost that we really try to shy
away from is, you know one it'sa fear-mongering.

(24:33):
You know the world's coming toan end.
You've got to buy silver now atthe bargain price at $35 an
ounce, never mind that they'rebringing.
You know they're mining abillion ounces a year, right?
So, or you know all the claimsand all the conspiracy theories.
You know, to me that's justthat's just manipulating people

(24:58):
and at some point people gettired of it.
The other thing, but you know,but it's a good front end.
You know, fear sells, right, weall know that.
And then the other thing isthat you know who are you
attracting.
And if you're attracting aclient that's got $200 to trade
and they're going to be reallyhigh maintenance, that's not
worth it.
You know that's just not worthit at all.
And so it's kind of, you know,I kind of like the filters of
you know who's not going to makeit.
You know, who's going to look atus and say, oh, that's not for
me.
I'm looking for something.

(25:18):
You know, I'm trying to turn$200 into a million.
That's not great.
Go do that, you know.
Go try that somewhere else.
So I think it is the customerthat you want, and then from

(25:38):
there you know what kind ofcompany and what kind of culture
do you want.
You know, and it should besomething that's.
I always found that it's likethe more traders that you have
in your company, the better,because then everybody is
aligned and everybodyunderstands.
You know what the client'schallenges are and things like
that too.
So you know if they call andthey're frustrated, you know
they're like, yeah, hey, I getit I was.
I was in that Google call tooand you know it didn't work out.
Um, so it's really just.
You know it's kind of a, it's a, it's a, it's a trading culture

(26:02):
and you just want it thatwanting that, to permeate
through.
You know that.
They know they understand likewhat.
You know what the hopes anddreams and fears are of our
clients, because, man, you knowthere's you get really
passionate about things like notonly is it money related, but
you know success in tradingmeans so much and failure in
trading is there's extremes ofmore than about anything.
You know if you're in a job andit's not really that exciting,

(26:25):
you can find another job.
But, man, if you're six, if yousucceed at trading and creating
a consistent income that opensup a whole world of interesting
possibilities, and then if youfail, not only is it frustrating
but it really crushes a verybig dream, and so I think it's
just important to have a team inplace that also understands
that and kind of embraces that.

John Newtson (26:43):
Yeah, and the last few years back in 2019 to now,
we've had a lot of things happen.
To now we've had a lot ofthings happen.
We had COVID and with COVID theyou know the trading boom, kind
of the investing trading boomthat happened and then we had a
pullback after that.

(27:03):
That, industry wide I would say, is probably the worst since we
since 2009, 2008, 2009.
What's been your experience ofthat and kind of what, of what?
How do you see the state ofthings right now in the industry
after that kind of?

John Carter (27:16):
Yeah, so yeah, and I remember 2008 very well and we
were, you know, we were a muchsmaller company then, but I
remember, you know, revenuesfell about 30% and it took about
two years to recover, and youknow the difference then.
So with 2008, the differencethen was that you didn't have
suddenly a bunch of new peopletrading.

(27:37):
You know, you just had a groupof people that had been trading
for a while and then 2008happened, and I remember that
was actually a fun year to trade, but, you know, not everybody
was prepared for that kind ofvolatility.
Okay, so what's the differencethis time around?
This time around, you just hada bunch of new people coming to
the market I mean, how manymillions, I don't even know but
all of a sudden, everybody's athome, it's work from home,

(27:58):
everybody's trading, boom, boom,boom, boom, boom.
So when that party came to anend, I know lots of friends who
leveraged up and they had ahundred thousand dollars and
it's like you know, a millionbucks gone, you know.
And and when the, when thedownturn started, they kept.
You know, they kept theirmargin in place, whether it was

(28:19):
Bitcoin, you know, differentstocks, all those things, and so
the things that I've noticedthis time around what the two
things that stood out to me isone how many people that came
into the markets that had neverseen a prolonged downturn, so
they didn't understand thingslike shorting or stop losses,
it's oh, it'll come back, and sothat was super delusional for a

(28:41):
lot of people.
So that wiped out some people.
But the other thing thathappened from there is that
you've got a group of people nowthat they got their feet wet
and they loved trading and theywant to learn about it.
So now it's kind of like allright, so they want to learn.
They want to learn to do it theright way.
And so what I've found you knowI'd say a slight difference now

(29:03):
in kind of the general market interms of traders versus, say,
10 years ago is that it's kindof this almost done for you kind
of a thing.
They're like okay, I get it,but I don't want to spend the
next 30 days learning how to setup these charts and
understanding.
I get the idea, can you justsend me an alert?

(29:24):
And I've seen that more andmore Alerts have always been
popular, but I've just foundmore done for you, kind of like
yeah, I love trading, but Idon't know if I trust myself
emotionally to handle these upsand downs, but if you could just
say like, all right, you'retrading a $100,000 account and
we're going to buy $5,000 worthof calls, that'll help me

(29:47):
understand position sizing andstuff like that too.
And so that's one thing thatI've seen understand position
sizing and and stuff like thattoo.
And so that's one thing thatI've seen and you know, and from
there it's.
You know, it's almost kind oflike being a sounding board to
kill bad ideas.
And you know I it seems likeonce a week I'll have someone
going like is this a good timeto buy Peloton?
I'm like it's never going to bea good time to buy Peloton,

(30:08):
right?
You know, if you play on thejunk pile, you know you're just
going to, you're going to getyour, you're going to get
tetanitis or whatever.
So it's really just kind of.
So the idea of you know, helpingpeople pinpoint like this is a
good opportunity, but alsotelling them you know what not
to do it's almost like you knowwhether a trader is successful

(30:30):
today or not is what they learnnot to do.
And also being able to tellthem that like hey, yeah, don't
you know, um, but that'sprobably the biggest thing is
we'll get is just fending offquestions of people like well,
you know, do you think I shouldload up on?
Should I buy a bunch of callson Meta right before earnings?
No, you know, cause you know itmight work, but it very highly
probability won't, because ofthis, this and this, and so I

(30:51):
think it's.
You know, it's almost like amission to save people from
themselves in a way and, uh, youknow, trying to just find, you
know, the ways to do that.

John Newtson (30:58):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, I think that.
Um, so do you think that the?
Um, we obviously had a hugeamount of people who came in and
so like, for you guys, what doyou think?
Like the, the rough, roughpercentage of people who kind of
like are still here from that21 kind of boom?

John Carter (31:15):
it's a good.
You know, we definitely hadthis.
All the same, it was kind ofsimilar to 2008.
I mean, we kind of, you know,went and came down about 30 and
then, you know, kind of startedto bottom out and turn back
higher again.
Um, I I think what from justfrom what I've seen, is that you
know, even the people that saylost money and they're kind of
out of the game for a while,they got their feet wet, though

(31:35):
you know there's still, it isstill kind of a um, and you're
and you're seeing that.
Now, what I'm seeing right nowis you can kind of tell a lot by
just when you see um likerecord volume and options.
So that's one thing.
You know SPX and all that kindof stuff, and when you see stuff
like that, it just shows youhow much interest there is out

(31:57):
there and how much activity isout there.
And now the question is okay,how many of these people are
doing it on their own?
How many of these people are onsomeone's Discord that they saw
on TikTok?
And then, how many people havefound a real community?
Um, and there's rooms.
You know there's a one room, aguy that I follow and he will.

(32:19):
You know it's crap room butit's great information Like
there's.
It's old technology, um, youknow there's no screen share,
there's no audio, but it's greatbecause it's a group of real
traders doing real things.
And you know, if you're a newperson and you go in there,
you're totally lost, right, butthat's.
That's the kind of thing is.
Just, you know, you want tokind of find these.

(32:41):
You can't be all things to allpeople you know in this market.

John Newtson (32:44):
You got to really say okay, you're an experienced
trader, here's your home.
You're a noob, you know, here'syour home.
And just kind of making surethat that's clear from the
outset.
Yeah, yeah, I think that one ofthe things that I had this in
my state of finpub presentation,that that was that really
struck me was that the whenthings kind of started to go
soft for this industry, um forthat period, um, that pullback

(33:08):
happens, but retail investorparticipation in the market
continued to hit record highs,and so you can see, like
investor participation in themarket continued to hit record
highs and so you can see, likethe participation in the market
explodes in 20 during covid andthen it stayed high and then a
lot of thin pub kind of you knowhas all kinds of things, all
kinds of problems.
People pull back and I wonderif it's because so many people

(33:29):
dove in to all of the kind ofaggressive stuff yeah, so and
were disillusioned.

John Carter (33:34):
Maybe uh so I think there's a couple things.
There is what at least I saw,because it's you know, there's
always that.
You know everybody's a geniusin a bull market right, and in
2020.
You know 2020 is a great yearfor trading and at some point,
you know, the music kind ofstops, and 2021 was a pretty
good year as well.
But when it really kind ofthings change and really I think

(33:56):
the one thing here that I don'thear people talk about, but
there's a fundamental changewhen interest rates go from a
quarter of 1% to 5%, like in sixmonths or however long, that
happened so many things thatthat impacted and it could be a

(34:20):
distraction to you know oh, myGod, I got to get a mortgage to.
You know, that's going to.
Things are, you know, atsomebody's company and stuff
like that.
But low interest ratesfacilitated a lot of excess and
including attitudes, ideas,because it was always, you know,
you're always like one, youknow, one week away from a new
home run because some otherasset was going up, so you might
have lost it in Google calls,but you made it in Ethereum, and
so when that party ended andall assets came down and

(34:41):
everything got tighter andeverything got harder and the
government wasn't handing outmoney.
The difference there with thatis before, when people lost
money, they could refund theiraccount Like whatever, I'll just
refinance my house, blah, blah,blah.
That just all shut down.
That's a big thing and I thinka lot of people just didn't
realize that.
So that was a big thing.

(35:01):
And then from there, ifeverybody, if there was no
guidance, if whoever you werefollowing just didn't know, like
there was a lot of people outthere that had services that had
been trading for two yearsGreat, they're doing awesome if
they're buying the dip on Tesla,like they're killing it.
But if they're buying the, youknow, if they're buying the dip
on Tesla from 400 all the waydown to, you know, 100 or 150,

(35:25):
and everybody's blindlyfollowing along.
So one thing you know, yourealize after a while, is people
don't really think forthemselves.
If you're buying calls, youmight think like, well, I've
literally had situations whereI'll place a target of like
seven bucks and it'll get tolike 690 and start to drop.
It's like all right, guys,let's take it.
But there will be people therethat it's like well, you said

(35:48):
seven and it's at a dollar now,and and I was like and so you
got to just really people howliteral literal people are on
that.
And so it's, it's just, you know, it's just really, it's almost
over-explaining.
You know like, hey, you knowthe market has changed, we're
below this.
You know, buying calls on theyou know this is not going to
work anymore.
And so anyone that I thinkwalked them through that process

(36:12):
was like okay, yeah, this isnot going to be as easy as it
was, it's changing.
That's a whole differentexperience than someone who's
never experienced that before.
And they're just like yeah,it'll come back, guys, don't
worry, it'll come back, it'llcome back.
Oh my God, six months later.
Yeah, that just wipes peopleout and you lose trust.

John Newtson (36:30):
Yeah, and that's where it's interesting, like
when I talk to a lot ofmarketers and copywriters on the
um publishing side of stuffthat, like um, patrick Bouvier
had brought it up too when Italked to him he was, you know,
copy chief over at, I guess atthe time and now he's over back
at Stansbury um, that interestrates a big cause for for for

(36:50):
everything going down, becauseall the ways that it affects
everything.
And then when Matt Ward and Iposted a video about with you
know, after the fed was like,hey, we're not, we're not going
to keep raising rates when wecut rates is here and you're
like, oh, it's going to be a,you know, rates go down, we're
going to have a boom in monthssince 21.

(37:11):
And my point when I talked tosome of my friends in the
industry is like, if interestrates affect FinPub this much,
then all the things that you'rewriting about, how much is it
affecting those things?
And if you don't understand,like just the basics of interest
rates, like how can you talkabout the markets effectively?
It's great when everything'sexploding, like when the world,

(37:33):
you know everything's going up,but like we're not in that
environment again.
And how do you, how do you eventhink about this from an idea
perspective if you don't evenhave that in your calculus,
right?

John Carter (37:47):
Yeah, and I, and I think the other thing is, you
know we were talking earlierabout how you know interest
rates impact.
But you know, yeah, and I thinkthe other thing is, we were
talking earlier about howinterest rates impact, but a lot
of clients that are wealthy andhave, say, investments in
apartment buildings orcommercial real estate some can

(38:08):
always get cash again.
Oh, I blew up my $50,000account.
Great, I'm going to come overhere, I'm going to get it again.
But that situation can change alot of things.
Now I think at some point andthis is how I think this is
going to go down is that we aregoing to see kind of a 2008
style real estate correction in.
I mean, I would say thesecycles, 68% of the time they

(38:35):
work 100% of the time, right, solet's say, it plays out as it
has over the last 300 yearsevery 18 and a half years.
So that would mean that thisnext real estate 2008 cycle is
going to be 2027.
And then we're going to seeinterest rates cut, cut, cut,
cut, probably back to, you know,less than 1% again, and that's
good, because what happens thenis, you know, you will go
through a process where allassets rise.
Well, we don't know, that mayor may not happen.

(38:57):
Right, that's how what I thinkis going to happen.
But I also like to just tellpeople like you know, the the
environment's always changingand if you're in a you know an
environment with high interestrates, you know.
Just wanting to understand, youknow, in terms of trading, I
think it becomes even more.
I think one of the things, Iguess, if there's a selling
point when there's high interestrates, is how important it is
just to have a steady income tooffset debt payments and things

(39:20):
like that too.
And it just becomes more andmore important to look at
trading as it's like how can youdo this in a way where it's not
this emotional?
I always joke look, every tradedoesn't have to be this journey
of self-discovery.
You're like, oh my God, youknow the ups and downs and stuff
like that, but it's helpingguide people through that.
Like it's just, you know, it'sjust a way that, if you think of

(39:43):
it in its most simple form,it's just you know, we're just
showing people how to be Walmart.
You know, memorial Day iscoming up and there's going to
be a demand for hot dogs.
You can sell them for threebucks Great.
Buy them for a dollar now andthen, in three weeks you can
sell them for $3 versus I think.
I see a lot of people come tothe market and they're like
what's the hot stock of the day?
I got a SMCI is going up, I'mgoing to buy calls.

(40:03):
Well, it's great when thatworks, but when it doesn't,
people lose everything.
They just don't understand thatwhen the game changes.
And so part of it is, I think,is our job, is learning, just
educating people about that too,and that doesn't even have to
be a class, that's just hey,here's free information.
That it's just part of thebenefits of hanging out with us

(40:26):
is that, yeah, we're going togive you some trades but also
kind of educate you on the layof the land and kind of you know
how things work and stuff likethat too.

John Newtson (40:34):
Yeah, so are you then fundamentally bullish on
trader education as an industry?

John Carter (40:39):
Yeah, I am.
I just, you know, I think thatthe the big if there's a
reckoning on stuff like this isthat the you know it's the you
know we were talking earlierabout.
You know it's just it's.
It's this kind of like what'sthe first?
You know it's all hat, nocattle, right.
If you got to and you've got toreally be doing something that

(40:59):
you know that is working andsharing that with people versus,
um, you know some great, uh,there's a lot of things that
look great.
You know if you can really hypethem up, they're going to sound
pretty amazing and and maybethat's something that works in a
specific environment.
But you know, if it stopsworking and you keep pushing it,
um, you just lose credibility.

(41:19):
And so I think it's, ifanything, if anything, what 2023
taught a lot of people is tolearn how to be more discerning,
and so I think that that's um,you know it's, you got to pass
the sniff test.
You know you got it's and it'sso tough because you got to look
, we all with marketing, you gotto get people in the door and

(41:39):
it's.
And I always say like, look, ifwe can just get people in our
door, you know we're doing thema favor.
So we got to have somethingthat you know it's you know, in
terms of marketing, that'ssomething that's real and true.
But you know, you gotta youknow, what's that?
yeah, what's that fine line?
To kind of the.
The psychological thing is tokind of at least get them to
cross and give it a try, rightand um, but at the end of the

(41:59):
day, you gotta have stuff that'sand it doesn't have to be um,
you don't have to have stuffthat.
I think, contrary, it's like,you know, you don't necessarily
have to like, oh, my God, thisis a.
We have this great trader andhe or she is doing all these
great things.
It doesn't have to be that somuch.
It's just more here's, you know,actionable information of you
know going back to like what notto do.

(42:20):
I mean almost just, you know,just kind of being able to, you
know, tell people like, you knowthings like that too.
So I just think it comes downto it's just, you know, for
people that are genuine andwanting to share um, and they've
got some, you know marketexperience to back it up and
they're not this, you know blownsmoke, I mean, I think that's,
you know that's, if anything,that's going to be the kind of
the, those are the ones thatwill keep on going, and you know

(42:43):
everyone else will kind of havetheir booms and stuff like that
.
But you know they can, they'llbust.
You know once that, onceeverybody kind of gets an idea
that you know this stuff doesn'twork.
You know doesn't doesn't workthat great all the time.

John Newtson (42:54):
Yeah, yeah.
And so to you know, switchtracks for a second here.
Um, you mentioned that you soldyou know two thirds of the
business to a PE firm.
Um, I remember talking toBrittany Burns when she was CEO
and she she mentioned, like Ithink you guys talked to
something like 70, 73 orsomething different PE firms
before you found.
Walk me through why you decidedto exit that way and then what

(43:19):
that process looked like for youand then how it impacted the
business with a PE firm as apartner after the fact.

John Carter (43:27):
Yeah.
So it was interesting and Ithink we thought about this
maybe in the early 2020.
And we just kind of thought,all right, we've been having
some nice growth and we've beenjoking about let's build a real
business, let's build out a team, and so then what's the end
game with that?
Is it something where?
And so I always thought thatwithin our skill set internally,

(43:47):
we could build a business, a$30 to $50 million business.
Beyond that, I didn't know howto do it.
I think there's just at somepoint, you know, you kind of
know your skillset, you knowyour niche and you kind of build
something up that would makesense for someone more
experienced to kind of come inand help out.
So that was kind of the idea,and so we went through.

(44:10):
And so what we did was we wentthrough.
We found a kind of a smallboutique investment banker that
kind of knew the space, and wespent about a year, you know,
from the time that we firsttalked to them to the time that,
you know, we ended up closingon something.
It was about a little over ayear, 14, 15 months, and so and
the idea with that if nobody'sever gone through it before but

(44:32):
it's um, what's nice about thisis that the, the IB investment
banker, you know they'll puttogether materials and like a
teaser and then just kind oflike, hey, here's our story, and
then boom, they just shoot itout.
And we had yeah, I think it was78 NDAs to sign that, people
that were firms that wereinterested in Um, and then that
got down to about a dozen youknow that you're talking to.

(44:54):
And then you kind of narrow itdown to about three or four
where you know everything kindof clicks and everything kind of
aligns.
And we didn't know during thewhole process.
I mean, one of the things waslike, okay, we have no idea.
You know, would someone even beinterested in this?
And at the end of the day wewere completely fine continuing
to run it.
And so I think and that'simportant, like you want to.
You know, if you're justlooking to get out, I think
that's a different kind of athing.

(45:14):
But you know I wanted to stay apart of it.
You know I was wanting to rollequity into it and stuff like
that too.
And then the, you know the inthe changes, the.
So I always say it's, it'salways nice to have kind of
adults in the building, and soone of the first things that you
know started changing was ourtech stack.
So when you bring on somebodylike that, they just have

(45:36):
experience in a lot of differentindustries.
And so immediately it was likewow, here's some things, let's
get you a much better tech stack.
And that was great becausethat's not something that we
really knew how to do and that'sbeen fun.
And then the challenges are it'sjust that you have, you know
and I think this is with any youknow venture or private equity
firm is that they'll have afinancial model and they'll look
at the financial model and says, well, you know, and this,

(45:59):
there's a great.
There's a story of anotherindustry I know, and this guy he
had a widget, you know, he didlike hardware, he they
manufactured things for likeLowe's and stuff like that and
they sold it to a private equityfirm.
And there was this one productthat was kind of they didn't
make much margin on and I'm justmaking up numbers here, but

(46:23):
they were a big business.
They probably did $100 millionin revenue.
And then here's this one thatdid $15 million in revenue and
it only had 10% margins.
So they're like, oh, let's justget rid of that and the guy's
like we can't get rid of thatbecause if we do, that's going
to impact.
That's why Lowe's continues tobuy from us because we do that
from them, and so we'd actuallylose all this other business.
We're like, oh, no, no, but thefinancial model says if we cut
this one out, the EBITDA isgoing to be, the margin is going

(46:46):
to be that.
So the one thing I found is thatthat's something just to be.
You know, I've had to like kindof look at and say no, no, we
can't.

(47:29):
No-transcript part of thebusiness are the ones that built
it, because they've seen, theyunderstand the nuances, they
understand all the levers, theyunderstand that you know, if you
do this today, that's going tobe a sale six months from today,
and I think that's somethingthat sometimes can get lost, you
know, in the model, and sothat's what I've just found is

(47:49):
that it's more and some of thatthough some of that modeling out
has been interesting, but a lotof it is also kind of you know,
it's like okay, I know thatlooks great on the spreadsheet,
but this is how you know whenthere's a person out there and
they're trying to wonder whatcall to buy this model is not
answering that question right,and so I think it's.
So.
It is kind of it is interestingto look at.

(48:10):
So we've gone from, I'd say,you know, an organization where
now our tech stack's a lotbetter, our reporting is a lot
better, you know our KPIdashboards, all that I mean wow,
pristine.
And then you know, really nowjust kind of making sure we're
backing that with what I wouldcall more intuitive like hey,
this is how the industry works,kind of thing Right, and that

(48:30):
seems to be.

John Newtson (48:31):
Would that be one of the issues?
I guess would be that there'snot a lot of comps.
It's a very niche industry.
It's a very kind of specificthing, so that you're not going
to find a lot of firms that havea lot of experience running
companies in this space, I wouldimagine.

John Carter (48:44):
Yeah, I would say, you know, I would say that
there's something to be said forindustry knowledge and
experience, and it was greatbecause the firm we worked with
they do have experience incontent, so they understood that
part of it.
But I have seen situations, too,where it's someone that doesn't
understand the industry at alland, yeah, they just don't kind

(49:06):
of understand it, and so thatends up being a business and
we've bought kind of smallerbusinesses and stuff like that.
But I always find it's it'snice to find one where you know
you've got someone thatunderstands their business but
they're just overwhelmed withall the work and so you know,
and that's kind of a perfect,kind of a niche there, and so I

(49:27):
think you know, with us is we'relooking, you know looking at
partners and stuff like that too, it's always you know, with us
is we're looking, you knowlooking at partners and stuff
like that too, it's always allright.
Is this, is this a group thatyou know they do this.
They may not do it exactly likewhat we do, but they understand
.
You know the client is lookingfor very specific things and and
things like that too, and thatjust always makes it so much
easier.

John Newtson (49:45):
Right, so you are in like kind of an acquisition
mode yourself then.

John Carter (49:49):
Yes, and so we've taught and we've, you know,
we've mostly it's been on thesmaller side.
We've talked to some, you know,um, that would be bigger ones
too, and it is kind of, you know, it is kind of finding that
it's a combination of all right,are they doing things that
we're not, that we'd like to?
So, um, as an example, we do.
I like the idea of what I justcall algo trading, um, and it's

(50:10):
not, that's not our area ofexpertise, but it's like, okay,
we can go partner with theseguys because that's what they do
and we can bring in some of ourideas.
Awesome, you know, I thinkthat's kind of a, you know,
perfect type of an opportunitythere.

John Newtson (50:20):
Nice, and then with the PE firms, what was
there anything that like thatthey brought to the table
besides like saying, hey, let'supgrade the tech stack, but like
in terms of a view of thebusiness or the industry that
you thought was like surprisingin a kind of a positive way,
like a different perspective onlike what it is or what you do
that maybe you hadn't thought ofbefore.

John Carter (50:39):
Well, one of the things is that they were really
able to kind of analyze, kind ofthe you know the data in a way
that we hadn't been able to, andjust something like.
So one of the changes that wedid was, you know, I was I
always used to like, push for,like let's just do monthly
subscriptions, it's just easierin terms of cash flow, it's
predictable and you know allthat kind of stuff.

(50:59):
And then they really came in andstarted pushing like, you know,
let's do annuals because ofthis, this and this.
I'm not really a fan of thisidea, but it was a good idea and
you know, it's just and I thinkit's just things like that
where they could look at thingsin a way and just say like, yeah
, you're, you're, you're in theweeds.
So you may not know that if wedid this, this and this, you

(51:21):
know this would make some things.
This would make some things alot better, and so that's been
helpful, kind of just havingwhat I would call professionals
being able to kind of look andanalyze things in a way that,
you know, I never, you knowwe're.
It was always kind of likewe're in the weeds and I think
we're doing pretty good, and ohyeah, here's the monthly P&L.
Great, when's the next promo?
You know, and that was kind ofyou know versus just kind of you
know, doing things like justmore of the I guess what I would

(51:44):
say really deep dive, advancedanalytics and things like that.

John Newtson (51:48):
Nice and then on the Hmm Nice and then on the
like kind of with your place inthe industry.
I guess you have a lot ofrelationships.
You do partnership kind of work, like affiliate work and other
things with people in the spacetoo, don't you?

John Carter (52:01):
Yeah, and we always try to find it.
It's always we used to do a lotmore affiliates gosh in.
You know, I guess eight or 10years ago we were really heavily
into it and we still do it's.
You know that model's changed alittle bit, right, but it is
kind of nice where, if you havesomeone, especially someone if
they're really good at marketingand they've built up a database

(52:21):
, our products are really goodand they convert.
And that's something where, ifyou kind of find the right match
, the tricky thing is if youfind someone else out there has
a product too, it's just finding, you know, it's just trying to
find like ones that arecomplimentary to each other.
So we found, you know, a coupleof groups like that where it's
just like, yeah, we, we promotetheir stuff because it's great,

(52:41):
we use it, and um, and then youknow, and vice versa, and that's
I always think it's kind ofperfect, because it's just like,
hey, we found this tool andwe're using it and great, we'll
set up, we'll reach out to themand to say, hey, would you like
to do some kind of a swap orcross-promotion, because your
stuff's awesome and our clientswould really like it?

John Newtson (53:03):
Yeah, yeah, and so tell us about your farm, their
ranch, because I love seeing thepictures.
You've got zebras, you've gotkangaroos, you have everything.
It's a full-blown safari outthere.

John Carter (53:18):
Yeah, so we have learned a lot during this
process.
So there was a time, about ayear into COVID, when nobody was
flying and we just I wastalking to my wife, maria, and
we had this.
I call it.
We call it the Tesla Ranch.
I had some really good tradesin Tesla over the years and
pulled that money out of themarket and got like 300 acres
out in Wimberley, texas, and youthink of Texas as like a desert

(53:42):
, but the hill country, there'shills, there's lakes.
It's a really amazing place.
It's very similar to SouthAfrica in terms of climate, the
climate, and we'd visited therea couple of times.
And so I was sitting there andwe thought, gosh, we may never
go to.
You know, are we going toAfrica again?
We haven't been since, you know, since COVID, and we just

(54:02):
thought, like you know, we'vegot this deck and it overlooks
this field.
There's a pond like wouldn't itbe cool to just see some zebras
and wildebeest out there?
You know, ha ha, ha.
And so one night, you know, Iprobably had a glass of wine and
I'm just looking online and youknow, and there's all these
Texas ranches that have allthese things, and so we ended up
with, um, I think 12 differentspecies of you know.
You got Kudu zebra, kudu zebra,wildebeest, uh, nyla sable, uh,

(54:25):
oryx, um, you know, all on andon.
And then, uh got some kangaroosthe guy that I'd work with, he
brought over a tiger cub.
I'm like no, this is not goingto be a tiger king situation.
He brought over some monkeys,like no, I've already got three
teenagers, I don't need any more.
But the idea that we could justgo for a hike or sit on our
porch and it's great.

(54:46):
I almost got a giraffe and I'mso glad Maria had this great
idea.
We went and visited a giraffepreserve and stayed the night
and it's like, okay, this is not, that's a lot of work.
You know that's, that's a no-go, but you know these are zebras,
kudu, you don't need to.
They just eat grass and drinkwater.
You know they just they'repretty low maintenance and yeah,
and so that's been awesome andthe.

(55:16):
You know, the issue is thingslike you know, the first zebras
we got.
They were on our place forabout exactly five minutes and
then they just jumped the fence,like we didn't have a high
enough fence, and so I had toget a drone and every day for
three weeks I would fly thisdrone like in a seven mile
radius looking for them.
And I finally found them threeweeks later and they were in
this field, about a mile away,and I called the owner up and
you know, just this big ranchand I said, hey, hey, david,
this is John man.
Sorry, my zebra is on yourplace and I'm going to build out

(55:38):
a high fence, but I don't, youknow, I don't know what to do,
can I just?
He's like you city slickers.

John Newtson (55:45):
You know, it's pretty funny.

John Carter (55:49):
But yeah, so we learned a lot.
You know we lost, uh, we lost,uh, uh, we lost one because you
can't have, like goat poop hassome kind of a virus that'll
kill like bongos, or like welost a bongo to that.
Um, but it's been great.
I mean it's been a really good.
You know it's been a funexperience with the kids.
You know it's amazing.
You know, on the weekends goinghiking and you come or go

(56:10):
around a corner and there's somezebra or you, or we've had some
kangaroo babies and stuff likethat.
Yeah, it's been fun.

John Newtson (56:16):
That's very cool.
So I guess, with where thingsare now, what are you guys
thinking next?
For you guys, you're kind of ata great size.
I guess you're going to growincrementally.
What's the kind of at a greatsize?
I guess you're going to growincrementally.
Like, what's the kind ofapproach now, with the market

(56:36):
coming back the way it is?

John Carter (56:39):
Yeah, a big part of it is.
It's really talking about whatpeople you know there's things
that we'd like to do and thenwe'll talk to our clients and
it's just like what do you guyswant?
You know, what are you guyslooking for?
And you know there's certainlya lot of interest in, you know,
zero DTE, spx and stuff likethat and we do some of that, but
it's, you know, there aremarkets where, you know, we tend

(57:00):
to focus more on kind of swingtrading or you hope, you know,
holding something for kind of a,you know, maybe a couple days
to a couple of weeks, but thereis an appetite for that, for
more shorter term stuff.
So we're thinking of launchinga product you know around that
we've got.
You know, I don't know we've.

(57:22):
Live events are great, justbecause it's really it is fun to
kind of get out and kind ofmingle with people versus just
staring at screens all day.
There's a great place in Austinto do it, because you can do it
at the college and you get likestadium seating and stuff like
that.
So we've done that.
A couple.
We may, you know, think ofdoing maybe a bigger event like
that, but mostly it's just more.
You know what are ways to grow.
What are ways to grow that's,you know, partnership based.

(57:43):
Like, okay, let's partner upwith this broker, you know,
let's, let's, let's really kindof dial into the needs of their
folks and can we help each otherout and to the needs of their
folks and can we help each otherout.
And so sometimes that will, youknow, a lot of our services are
, I would call, a lot ofhandholding, and it may be
something like, okay, well,here's a service there's no
handholding.
You know, here's the alert,good luck.
And so it's just kind oflooking at different things like

(58:05):
that, like what's, you know,not only is like what is it
something that people want, butwhat is it a good, how is it?
How is this going to befulfilled?
You know, is this going to besomething where, um, you know
and I personally, you know, Igot three kids that were trained
you don't like to travel, wetake time off, and so I

(58:26):
personally can't dedicate tolike, okay, here's a service I'm
going to do every day for thenext year with five other people
that are part of that alertservice, you know, yeah, so so
it is.
It is kind of looking at a whatare.
You know what are some thingsin this market.
You know you kind of likefollow the volume right, where's
the volume?
Well, gosh, you got.
You got a ton of volume options.
It continues to grow.
I think automated tradingsystems are interesting.

(58:48):
That's a rabbit hole thoughit's.
You know that's.
That's something where you knowjust got to, you know it's.
It's an easy rabbit hole to godown as well.
But I think the idea that youknow I'm I'm a big fan of things
like you know, like Tasty Tradeand Tom Sosnoff and things like
that and the way they do things, and it's really just kind of
finding ways like you know we'vegot to.

(59:08):
It's finding services thatpeople would actually want, but
at the same time, you know we'reall businesses and so it's
doing it in a way that'seconomically feasible too.
If you do, you know you do aservice for free.
That really it's tough becauseit's you know you're having to.
I personally, because peoplehave asked like too, it's like
well, you know, if you're justteaching, why don't you do it

(59:29):
for free?
And it's like because it's yougo back to yeah, I mean, I
nothing I have to explain to youright, it's just more about you
know it's.
But it is more about, like, howdo you want to spend your time?
I would rather say, you know,do you want to spend time with?
You know a hundred people thatare in a room that are paying
nine bucks a month, or 10 peoplethat are paying, you know, $90

(59:53):
a month.
You know absolutely the 10people it's.
You know it's going to behigher quality it's.
You know it's less.
You know running around andstuff like that too, and so I
think a lot of it is just, youknow wanting to.
You know, find the people outthere that are, you know,
serious about trading, that arelooking for community, and it is
kind of more of a.
You know it's not about scaling, like, how do we get, how do we

(01:00:14):
find a hundred thousand people?
It's not.
How do you, how do you find thenext hundred great people that
you really just want to workwith and we go to these live
events.
These are great people.
You know that's like wow, thisguy owns a printing business and
this guy does this, and youknow, and this and this lady
over here has got this, you knowamazing place that she you know
out in Italy, and so it is acool way to meet cool people and
it's just you know doing almostproducts that attract that as

(01:00:37):
well.

John Newtson (01:00:39):
Yeah, I think that's.
I think that is going to comeback in a way that maybe it
hasn't, in that businessesbuilding community, having that
kind of like texture of productsthat includes some kind of a
live component.
That kind of like texture ofproducts that includes some kind
of a live component um, atleast on the smaller side.
Like it may not be scalable,but it adds a level of stability
, I think, to the business too.

(01:00:59):
Um, because you build a cultureof people who are like this is
where this is part of their life.

John Carter (01:01:05):
Right, it's more than just an online product yeah
, and it's so, and to me it's,it's.
It's more sustainable and waymore fulfilling than a churn and
burn model.
You know, it's just like allright, you know it's just like
you know you want it to be.
I personally, if I'm doing this, I want it to be fun.
I want it to be like I want towake up excited.
I want to wake up like, oh goodLord, you know what are we

(01:01:25):
doing today, and that's alwaysan important part of it too.

John Newtson (01:01:30):
Yeah, so last big thing then, because you
mentioned TastyTrade and youhave a PE firm as a partner, I
would imagine at some pointthere's been conversations about
the fact that you guys probablycould drive quite a bit into a
broker and you have brokerpartners, and so I would imagine

(01:01:51):
that have you guys hadconversations like that, like
hey, we, we could be the, the,you know like an acquisition
from a, from a broker, oracquiring a broker and becoming
a broker and kind of mergingthose models?
Have you had those kinds ofconversations and thoughts?

John Carter (01:02:04):
Yeah, you know we have nothing, nothing that's
gone too serious, but I do thinkthat's a perfect model of you
know somebody like you know.
Here we are like showing peoplehow to trade and they're
trading on 20 differentplatforms.
You know what, if we were ableto kind of like let's just drive
them all to this group overhere and we're just working more
closely because, a we believein their product and stuff like
that, I think that's just such alogical step.

(01:02:26):
But it is hard to find.
You know who's the right, youknow who's the right partner for
that.
There's a lot of brokers outthere and it's something that
you'd want.
You want to make sure that, atheir platform is awesome and
robust.
B that you want to be able toutilize your tools on it, and
things like that.
And then, c it's not somethingthat is it a small broker where

(01:02:47):
they've got they're morestarting out but they're still
figuring out their systems, orit's some huge broker and I
don't know.
But I do think that that's avery like logical kind of next
step.
And you know, I guess in termsof you know a place to find a
home and everything like thattoo, yeah, yeah, cool, all right
, well, john, hey, I appreciateyou coming and doing this.

John Newtson (01:03:08):
Like I said, I've wanted to talk to you on this
for quite a while now, so you'reawesome and I'm really glad you
could do it.

John Carter (01:03:13):
Well, yeah, and thanks to you for putting
together.
I mean we've always, you know,throughout the years, have
learned just in your kind of thequarterly meetings you do and
the events that you put together.
It's just always great to beable to meet other people in the
industry and kind of see whatpeople are doing and stuff like
that too.

John Newtson (01:03:27):
So industry- thanks, I appreciate that.
Thanks, um and uh, yeah, sohopefully we'll get you on here
again for something else, ormaybe one of our deep dives or
one of the marketing mastermindcalls that we're going to be
doing an fms pro um, so uh,again.
Thanks, john.
Yep, sounds good.
Yeah, great, great to do it.