Morgan Busby: Surviving & Thriving in a Changing Financial Publishing industry

This episode took me too long to get done.

In this conversation with Morgan Busby, CEO of Financial Media Corp.

Morgan is one of my favorite people in FinPub.

He’s a great entrepreneur and human.

He’s also always willing to talk about the hard stuff in business.

We dig into the challenges he’s had managing the business over the past few years.

From the early 2020 fears of maybe needing the business plan version of an apocalypse bunker – to the biggest boom the industry has ever seen.

To the regulatory nightmare at the start of the biggest drop in market demand the industry had ever seen in 2022-to-early-2023.

“I think we lost money for 18-months straight. It was brutal.”

And how the business came out the other side stronger, more focused, and with a ton of lessons.

The business is thriving again.

And Morgan shares what he’s learned along the way.

Plus, his view on where the industry is headed.

This is one to watch.

We cover a lot of ground super-relevant to all of us in Finpub.

Reminders:

1.  The Financial Marketing Summit 2025 is January 23-24.
Go here to register

2. The Reaching Retail Investors Conference 2024 is November 11-12th, 2025 in Miami, Fl. Go here to register

3. The FMS Pro Community, the #1 online business community for the investment newsletter & trader education industry is found here

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, everyone should
recognize morgan.
Um, if you've been around fmsat all, um, morgan busby's been,
I don't know.
You've been with us supportingfms from the very first one way
back like 10 years ago in vegas.
Um, yeah, the planet hollywood,yeah, and you've gone a long
way since then.
Way back then you had TradingPub and now you have this whole

(00:28):
ecosystem that you're part ofand you're partnered with VNR
and Financial Media Corp.
You have a bunch of differentpublishers.
So it's been a bit of a journey, yeah, yeah, you could say that
, and probably the moststressful part of that journey
was in the last four years yeah,without a doubt, really last,

(00:49):
I'd say two, you know two, Iguess two to three.

Morgan Busby (00:53):
um, you know, everyone had the covid, you know
the covid experience, which wasinteresting because when it
first happened I don't know ifyou remember this everyone just
talks about, like you know, thecovid boom in the business.
But for that, that first, Iguess it was like maybe February
, the start of February, rightwhen people started realizing
like it was like right when ithit New York and and so it was

(01:13):
like, oh, starting to haveshutdowns and close, you know,
close cities or close governmentservices, where the market was
just like tanking every day.
And I think the bottom, thebottom was like the Bill Ackman
day, you know, when he's likeyou know all hell's breaking
loose or whatever.
And then then like the subtickers, like Ackman buys Hilton
hotel by, you know, and likeall the stocks that day.

(01:34):
But but that was, you know, hehe was talking about and, um,
and obviously he, he played itprobably like investment wise
better than anyone, of of buyingthe right things at the right
time.
But uh, we went through a periodin our business where it's like
sales just totally dried up.

(01:55):
Um, I remember, you know themarkets would be down, like you
know, 3%, 4%.
And uh, the only thing we didwe just said, hey, let's try to
like open up a trade room, youknow, like open up live trade
room for all of our customers totalk through it and try to, you
know, just be, you know, atleast be talking to them.
And we saw a huge spike inrefunds of people that you know

(02:18):
would say, hey, I just lost myjob, I need, you know.
And of course you know, in thatsituation you just give them,
give people their money back,regardless of of the policy.
But we actually made a couple ofI remember sitting down with
our CFO and like making distinctplans.
We had like one plan whichwould just be initial, you know,
cuts.
The second plan, which would belike, let's cut anything that's

(02:41):
not.
You know, at that time we hadall these like projects and
we're going to go into this areaand all you know all this stuff
that you try and try to thinklike very broadly, which some
ended up being okay, someweren't, but you know we looked
at it.
We're like, if it's not goingto make us the lights on, like

(03:03):
an eight to 10 person core ofpeople, that would just take
massive salary cuts and thenbuild the business back up.
So it was like that was ourthought process at the beginning
and then after I guess after acouple of weeks and you know
some of the government stimulusand things that the market
started rallying and ended up tobe the biggest boom and

(03:24):
probably the biggest boom in finpub ever say, like you know,
easily yeah, yeah, so it was.

John Newtson (03:30):
it was a bizarre time yeah, I mean, um, and I
want to go back before that, butjust like that.
I mean, you had like the thatweird dynamic of all with with
covid shutting down all liveevents, all the sporting stuff
stopped and then all the peoplewho were sports betting turned
out were also like overlappingwith the trading market and they
were coming online, um, to findsomething to do.

(03:53):
It seemed like and we had thisbig bump.
But I think that there's astructural change there because
you can watch like the marketactivity, um, in retail
investors and covid, like theycame in and they with historic
amounts of trading volume fromretail and that's just never
gone away.
Like it was like a fundamentalshift.

Morgan Busby (04:12):
Well, and you know the other thing, not just the
attention, but there was aperiod in time where Google ads
were extremely cheap.
And you know it's like you hadall the travel companies anyone
branding, you know that justpulled their ad budget.
And I remember, you know, youknow it's like you had all the
travel companies anyone branding, you know that just pulled
their ad budget.
And I remember, you know, youknow Nate, like Nate, who works
with us, who had never reallyrun run Google ads, you know,
before he had an ad up for oneof our, one of our products, and

(04:35):
I remember him like distinctlycalling me and saying, hey, I
think, I think we'll spendthirty thousand dollars today.
You know, like on this one,this one ad, is that OK?
And it's like, yeah, I get, youknow it's backing out, but uh,
it was a.
It was a weird period.
You know, we were like payingour credit card off.
It was almost like a prepaiddebit card.

(04:55):
You know, based on like causethey also cut all the limits.
You know, like the credit cardRight.

John Newtson (05:06):
We're like, hey, we're getting rid of risks, so
so we would be paying.
We'd pay our credit card offlike every two days, and it was.
It was a wild time.
Yeah, yeah, that was.
I mean, it was a.
You're right, there was thatperiod of like everyone's kind
of holding the rails and likethis is going to be bad, um, and
then it turned out it was thisamazing boom um.
But before that, because I wantto talk through, like kind of
how I feel, like your journey infinpub, because you've had both
the advertising side and thesubscription publishing side and

(05:27):
the trader education side, allin one, you had this really cool
journey that really reflects alot of these trends all the way
through the entire last 10 yearsof the business, or more
actually.
So let's walk back to, like youhad TradingPub, right, you want
to tell everyone what was thatbusiness and then what's the?
What's this progression?

(05:48):
Yeah, so.

Morgan Busby (05:49):
So in 2011, I actually tried to do two things.
One, I was um, I had a, I hadmy brokerage license.
I had a series 7, a series 24.
We had like a branch office ofa broker dealer and the idea was
to create another like anonline trading platform.
And we actually had a whitelabel to thinker swims platform

(06:10):
that we could open up directaccounts, called it was on think
, called think pipes, which waslike their institutional
platform, which was pretty cool.
So we got like really goodpricing and had some growth.
It was profitable and doingwell.
Then, when thinkerim sold to TDAmeritrade, they said, hey,
we're going to get rid of thiswhite label and just use it for
RIAs.
So that pretty much put thatwhole idea out of business just

(06:33):
overnight.
But at the same time, I hadstarted this blog on the side
with the idea of like, hey, it'dbe cool, I'd had the
opportunity, my dad had aneducational firm, it'd be cool,
you know, I'd had theopportunity, my dad had an
educational firm.
And so I'd met you know, metpeople going to like Traders,
expos or money shows and thoughtlike it'd be cool to have like
an online version of just freeeducation and eventually, you

(06:54):
know, maybe figure out how toyou know how to monetize it.
And so we would have, we'd havewebinars where I would host the
webinars and just have two orthree speakers come on, give a
really good, like free,educational session, then at the
end, have maybe make an offerat the end or a opt-in.
And uh, when it started, Ithink our first six months, we
did like 1600 bucks, you know,in revenue.

(07:14):
But just thought like, hey, ifI can build an audience
eventually, you know, figure outa way to monetize it.
And I look back now on thoseweb, like like the stats of
those webinars you'd have, youknow, 50 or 60% of the people
who registered would show up.
We would have webinars, some ofthem with like two or 3000
people in the room, you know.
And now, like the effort ittakes to get that number of

(07:37):
people in the room is like crazy, you know, like what it's like.
If I had known then what I knownow, you know, would have been
been crazy.
But but yeah, so it grew.
We made money through.
Our first big sponsorship wasactually with Nadex Exchange,
which was a binary optionexchange that had gotten
registered.
There were a lot of offshorebinary option exchanges, but the

(07:58):
US regulated one was Nadex andthey liked our webinar.
So we would do theseeducational webinars on their
products and try to try to bringawareness.
And one thing I always did wasjust I'd take pretty much
anything I made on that and justreinvest it in lead gen and try
, and, you know, just thoughtlike I'll just have a bigger
audience or bigger audience andand so that was what sort of

(08:19):
like started the trading pubmodel and then we eventually
merged with Fin uh, finmc, whichwas a monitor that was like a
monetization component ofsending out paid offers and uh
yeah, and then that was I thinkthat was 2014 that we we did
that deal, which was rightaround the time that FMS got
started.

John Newtson (08:37):
Yeah, I think we started in 13 and like that next
year you did that deal, um.
Like that next year you didthat deal, um, yeah.
And so then like that's where Ialways thought of, like the you
know that that business kind ofgrowing, you know, as fms grew,
not like directly related to it, but like just in parallel,
like, yeah, every year you'dshow up and there'd be more

(09:00):
things happening and more thingshappening um, Um and uh and so,
like you went with like for awhile there.
I remember like financial mediacore for MC was.
You know you were like the, thethat business was very
innovative in terms of likebeing the first ones really to
bring the uh, uh, the one clickopt-ins to the industry, um, and

(09:21):
things like that.
There was all these like kindof technical stuff that you guys
brought in that became kind oflike standard across the
industry over the over the nextseveral years.
But like a lot of thatinnovation happened, you know,
at FinMC and then you ended upbuying your partners out and
adding a whole publishing empirethere too, right.

Morgan Busby (09:41):
Yeah, yeah, and you know it's interesting when,
back when we were doing a lot ofinnovation with FinMC, you know
I had had two partners, Jamesand um, and then also Bob, who a
lot of people didn't know Bob,but he was really the, uh, the
tech side of the of thepartnership and I think one of
the most valuable things in thein the world, like there's a lot
of people have, like you know,tech knowledge or or you know,

(10:04):
called it knowledge, whateverit's, like your, your way of
showing that you don't knowanything about tech when you
call it it but, uh, but havingthat like more of a software
mind or technical, you know, atechnical mind, the people that
have that plus understand themarketing business, I think have
just an enormous advantage overeveryone else where, like you
know, like not strongtechnically, so any idea I have,

(10:26):
you know I have to then takeand, you know, go through
someone who is technical, youknow, or or or like I don't see
all the, all the things thatprobably, like, the best example
you see in our space is, uh,with matt, you know matt paul,
absolutely, yeah, and what he'sbeen able to do, and and even
like george and charles, bothyou like fit into that category.
So it's a huge advantage, likeif you're technically minded, I

(10:48):
would say, if you can spend alot of your time trying to learn
the marketing side and a lot oftimes that doesn't fit, you
know, like people who aretechnical or and vice versa, but
if you can really work to learn, that can become extremely you
know, extremely valuable.

John Newtson (11:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And that's one of those thingswhere it's almost like on the,
on the, you know, on the trafficside, like your competition now
would be, like people like, whocan do all this technical stuff
.
It's very difficult to competewith people like, I mean, market
beat, matt paulson is in thephenomenal job, um, and, like
you said, george and inflatablelike they're, they're some of

(11:23):
the biggest traffic drivers inthe industry, right, and that
tech piece is a big piece of it.
And so then from there you makethe decision you have
essentially what is a verticalad network in FinPub, trading,
education and retail investors.
And then you make the decisionlike, hey, we're going to

(11:44):
actually try and launch umpublishing businesses and sell
subscriptions, and so, like thatwas another, like you know,
fundamental shift in kind ofwhat you, what you were doing.

Morgan Busby (11:56):
Yeah, yeah, and it kind of came, came about
organically.
You know, a lot of times when,when you're in the traffic
business, a lot of people there,you know some people will buy
traffic.
You know just like, hey, I'llbuy it straight numbers, here's
the, you know, here's the cash.
If it hits this I'll scale.
If I hit, you know like andusually it's more of the kind of

(12:17):
like, deeper pocketedadvertisers that have the
ability to go in the hole alittle bit on, you know like
they don't have to make backtheir money day one.
Then you've got other peoplewho say, hey, I'll do affiliate
stuff, which affiliates greatlike, because if it's converting
really well, there's no realcap on it.
You know, it's a, it's a greatvalue for the business if they
price their you know theirpayout or CPA correctly.
And so we'd always getapproached by you know people

(12:38):
hey, we do this affiliate deal,we do this.
And we were able back then tonegotiate some pretty good deals
.
Like we would have, uh, likelong-term cookies.
Uh, we would.
We, we had a few that we did.
We, we actually had lifetimecookies on uh, which eventually
they expire, you know.
Uh, you know I don't have any,any checks coming in for those
lifetime cookie deals, but uh,but again, you know, when you

(13:01):
have the power to send, like youcan get better.
You know, just get, get betterdeals with it.
And so we started to do some ofthose where then we said, hey,
if we have this strong affiliatedeal, we'll actually go out and
buy traffic you know, build afar list and use that as a way
to offset our ad costs.
And that just sort oforganically flowed into the idea
of doing, you know, apublishing partnership.
And so we we did some where wetried launching our own product.

(13:25):
We had some partnerships thatthat came about where we said,
you know, like would would kindof say, hey, there's three
options A, we can be be anaffiliate, uh, you know.
Or like a super affiliate, ifyou give us really strong terms.
Or C, we'll actually partnerand kind of we'll just be the
traffic side and you guys runthe business.
And so that's sort of what.

(13:45):
What launched us into thispublishing mindset and the whole
, the whole idea behind it, waswe were sold out every month of
advertising and it's like, hey,if someone's, you know, pick a
price but say someone's payingyou five bucks a lead or six
bucks a lead and they do itmonth after month.
It means it's worth more thanyou know five or six bucks a
lead.
So it's like it's worth morethan you know five or six bucks
a lead.
So it's like obviously there'sthe opportunity, opportunity

(14:07):
there to uh, you know, toincrease, you know, increase the
revenue of the client.

John Newtson (14:12):
Yeah, yeah.
And so then you had you know um, wealth press, um, dti, um and
other businesses, and then youknow, then you you had again
like your journey mirroring somuch in the industry.
Right, then you have.
When the ftc came in, you guyshad that fun experience as well

(14:33):
with with one of the publishingbusinesses.
Yep, um, which was not fun, uh,and and yeah, I guess how did
that change everything for youguys?

Morgan Busby (14:48):
So, so obviously, um, and and we were set up in a
way.
I think, when you look back andkind of like, when I talked
about the COVID plan of like orlike, hey, maybe we should shut
down this initiative, maybe weshould shut down you know this
initiative and I actually I Igave a talk recently at a um, at
another marketing event, kindof, on the topic of like, the

(15:09):
difference in making money andbuilding wealth.
You know, like with yourbusiness and the the thing to
think about.
You know, like you go throughyour bio slide and it's like hey
, here's my bio, so I startedthis business and then we did
this and this and this happened.
And then I did a secondary bioand I was like, here's the bio
that you know usually don'tpromote.
And it's like all the bad ideasI had, things we tried to

(15:30):
launch that we didn't fail, orthings that we launched and you
know, maybe did mediocre, butthen you know it was set up as a
bad deal or it was.
You know this and that and it'sit's a realization.
I think, as you grow inbusiness, to to just sort of
like focus more on on the thingsthat work instead of trying to
go so wide, you know with withall the ideas, which is tough
for me Cause like I'll getexcited about.

(15:50):
You know, tell me any dumb ideaand I'll start like I'm like
very optimistic and you knowalways look at at the bright
side or like, oh, that couldwork this way and this way and
this way.
And then you know it's like ifI sleep on it for a week I'm
like yeah, it's really not notthe best idea, but I'd say we
got too too far expanded withlike all the a lot of the
partnerships and deals you knowthat we did.

(16:13):
And, um, when it was interesting, when the FTC at wealth press
happened, it was also a timewhere it was like post peak of
the industry.
I think when I feel like, whenyou know, agora had an FTC thing
, when that happened, it wassort of like still the way up.
You know, raging Bulls wasstill the way up.

(16:35):
When WealthPress got its letter, it was sort of like there were
cracks in the you know, inFinPub the market was starting
to be a little soft and you wereseeing companies that had
peaked and it's sort of like,wow, we've added all this.
Like you know, post COVIDexpenses and bloated payrolls
and all these deals andeverything.
And so for us it was, um, it wasreally tough, because the first

(16:56):
thing that happens when an FTCnotice comes is you say, hey,
like we want to.
Obviously we want to becompliant.
So what do we need to to do?
You don't really know exactlywhat it is like very vague, like
, hey, just send us everythingyou've ever done.
And so the first advice of youknow kind of the attorneys like
let's take anything down.
You know that hasn't been likefully reviewed by an attorney,

(17:17):
you know by like you know withlike a fine-tooth comb or
whatever.
So it's like you take all yourpromos down and immediately
revenue goes to zero.
You know like, and it's likeyou don't take everything down
and let your whole team go.
You just take everything downand think, okay, hey, we'll go
through this, get this back up,or whatever.
So it was a really really tryingprocess to a.

(17:37):
It was like difficult markettimes.
B.
You know we were also goingthrough a.
You know the merger with mergerwith VNR.
So those discussions started, Ithink, in March of 2021.
So we had been, I guess,probably like six to eight

(17:57):
months into that.
We were about to close aboutthe time that WealthPress got
the letters, that wasinteresting to go through and
see, hey, are we still going toclose this deal, are we not?
Or what are we going to do?
And, um, you know, so it's likeall of that at once, which was
a pretty stressful, you know,stressful time.
Thankfully we were able to kindof, you know, to push through
it on both fronts.

(18:18):
We had a rough, rough year, Ithink we lost money, maybe like
18 months in a row, you know,from from that point, which is
just a, a brutal stretch to comeinto the business and just
thinking, like you know, I'mworking more than I've ever
worked and I'm basically likewriting a check to you know,
writing a check to be here.
But we had had a really solidteam like that stayed, kind of

(18:40):
like our whole core leadershipgroup stayed, which was which is
an interesting thing we um, wedid have a lot of people leave,
some people left voluntarily,some people left as part of
layoffs, you know which.
So it can be very sympatheticto like other groups that are
going through that Like it's abrutal.
Obviously it's like the worstfor the employee you know that
that's going through it but it'salso brutal.
As a business owner, you knowyou develop relationships, you

(19:02):
get to know people, theirfriends, their families, and so
it's really like a trying timeto kind of, you know, to go
through that and yeah, so wewent about like 18 months of
that.
I talked a little bit about someof the things we did at the FMS
talk like to turn the businessaround.
That, I think, was healthy.
It was like a healthy cleansingprocess to go through and

(19:27):
thankfully come out, you know,come out the other side of it.
But I think one of theinteresting things that was
through that whole, that wholepart with like FinPub as a whole
being in a bear market andtough time, like it wasn't like
we were the only one struggling.
Everyone else was having these.
You know, it was like a toughenvironment.
So.
So not to say like you, youwant other people to suffer, but

(19:49):
at least like I felt like hey,this is not, it's not just like
we're just not a horrible,horribly run company, like we're
just struggling in a difficultmacro environment.

John Newtson (19:59):
Yeah, and timing, you know, I feel like there's a
lot of publishers that had, justbefore that market turn, like
new pubs started and they weredoing well, um, or they as well
as they could, and then asthings deteriorated, they were
like I'm saying this is theworst time in the history of
finpub to have started a pub.
Yeah, and you know they go downand, like you know, I think of

(20:21):
some of the deals, like you know, with rogue and like their
editor died, passed awayunfortunately, terrible thing
happened there in the same timethat all this is happening.
You're like man, like trying torun up a hill that like keeps
crashing down on you, is so hardfor an existing business and
then for the startups.
You're just like this was justsome of the worst timing.

Morgan Busby (20:41):
Yeah, yeah, I think it's different challenges,
you know, like I know duringthat time I'd look at things and
think like, oh, how great wouldit have been to just started
our business, you know, and onlyhave this or whatever.
But it's like you're alwayskind of looking at you know the
grass is always green orwhatever.
But yeah, I'm also, I think,looking back.
You know it's like cliches, itsounds like very grateful.

(21:01):
You know for it, you know to gothrough it, you know for it.
Uh, you know to go through it.
It changed my perspective on alot of things.
I think changed my myperspective on, you know, on
taking different risks, on howto structure, you know,
partnerships, how to like evenjust discussions to have, you
know, going into, going into adeal with someone of um, so, so

(21:23):
obviously, and I think you knowknow, in the next 10, 15, 20
years, like, will probably bethings that'll be extremely, you
know, extremely valuable youknow what are some of those.

John Newtson (21:34):
What are some of those changes in perspective
then, specifically in terms of,like pre-deal, um, what
discussions to have?

Morgan Busby (21:41):
yeah, so.
So I mean one thing, that'sthat's it's like when things in
our business, even though wehave like a couple of blips,
like we were pretty much on astraight lineup, you know like,
like I said, like from 1600 andrevenue it was like we grew
every year.
Every year is bigger than thelast, uh, every year.
Also, I I I never really liketook a ton of money home.

(22:01):
Uh, like, I always tried tolike reinvest, like we did these
acquisitions or we did the youknow bought, you know like
bought more traffic or broughton a higher team, or like tried,
you know, and just kept tryingto like build and get to the
next level, get to the nextlevel, and then when the you
know like the bottom goes out,you kind of look back, you're
like gosh, I wasted so muchmoney on so many things that

(22:22):
like would be great to haveright now to to really kind of
like come in and solidify things, or you know so.
So I think, um, a of ofthinking through like new
verticals or new ventures, youknow ahead of time and where we
funded a lot of them out of cashflow, like a lot of them would
be like okay, hey, to let's saythat that we were going to

(22:43):
commit a million dollars to somenew idea or whatever.
But okay, well, over the nexttwo years, that's this much
thousand per month, as opposedto saying, hey, here's a million
bucks, this is it.
If it's gone, we're, you knowand.
And so you put yourself in thisposition where you can always
especially as like an optimisticperson always talk yourself
into holding onto it, instead ofsaying, hey, just you know it
didn't work, hadn't hit themetrics.

(23:03):
Just you know it didn't work,hadn't hit the metrics, whatever
, you know.
Another thing that is is big.
When you start losing moneycomes into capital contributions
.
You know with with anypartnership and and just I think
, being upfront about like, hey,what are we?
You know, how do I view it?
How do you view it?
What is kind of and everybodyhas their own limits, right,
like it's.
Like you know there's and thatwas a discussion we actually had

(23:26):
, you know, with with VNR waslike hey, what is, what is my
limit and what is your?
You know their limits,obviously much higher than than
what I'm personally able to do,and so, like having that.
It's just a very like frankdiscussion early on.
But those are difficult thingsto have when it's like, you know
, when it feels like yourplane's going down right,
everyone's uh, everyone's superstressful.

(23:47):
But we had, we had, you know,had a lot of good partnerships
that uh, you know everybody for,for the most part of a very
difficult situation, you knowkind of put their best foot
forward in every, you know, inevery regard.
That I'm really, you know,really thankful for I think a
lot of that's like just with,you know, building good
relationships over the years,and I think fms is a big part of

(24:07):
that.
You know, bringing bringingeveryone together.
And if I look back at liketrading pub in the early days,
that was probably it wasn'talways that way where, like,
everyone was like super open ofsharing.
Like earlier today, or I guessit was friday, matt shared like
hey, here's the top 10 affiliateoffers that we have right now,
you know, like which, whichagain, is not an out of the
ordinary thing, but years agoyou would probably have like I'm

(24:29):
not sharing that, like thoseare my you know, like those are
my people.
So I think having like a verylike open, collaborative thought
process has been good for youknow, it's been good for our
business and also for theindustry as a whole yeah, no,
definitely, definitely.

John Newtson (24:42):
And how do you see then, like the you know we
haven't, this happened.
Um, you're probably one of thebest people to kind of you know,
you've seen so much andexperienced so many of the
different dynamics that havethat have affected the industry
as a whole.
Where do you see things goingright now?
Where do you see like theindustry in terms of like, where

(25:03):
are the opportunities in thebusiness?
Because I think it's, I,because I think it's, I mean, I
think it's changed quite a bitover the last several years and,
like the market's grown a lotin terms of the customer size.
I think that that that thateasy growth has gone in the
sense of like, okay, we havekind of the size of the market
in terms of, like, online retailinvesting, folks looking for

(25:24):
information.
That that will, you know,there'll be some growth in there
in terms of, I think, moreadoption in the millennials as
they get older, um, but I thinkthat the market you know we have
, we've had this huge boommarket um of an increase in
total number of investors forthe last, you know, 20 years.

Morgan Busby (25:41):
Yeah, yeah, it's.
I think there's gonna continueto be, like you know, I don't
have like a bold proclamation tobe like email is dead, you know
, or macro is dead, everyone'straders, or everyone's you know
this or that, or crypto.
I think, for the most part,though, there's going to be the
opportunity for like severaldifferent like niche areas to be

(26:03):
successful and to grow whereit's like oh, there's probably a
small publishing company rightnow that's maybe doing half a
million to a million bucks amonth.
That could be a 15 to 20 or 20to $30 million publisher just
focusing on one aspect oftrading or just focusing on a
gold macro letter, because Ithink the market is a lot bigger

(26:26):
in that sense.
And also you've seen, with alot of what happened with Agora,
which I think reached what likeover a billion, you know at the
peak.
You know the peak of it all,and you've talked a lot about
this, about kind of the talentdispersion of you know of that,

(26:47):
and so it's still looking at itlike they have several divisions
still doing very well.
You know, like some, I think,like everyone else, it's like if
your promos are good and Italked to someone in the past
week from who was, who waspreviously at one of the market
wise companies, and you knowwe're talking about some of the
challenges that they were facingand uh, but at the same time,

(27:07):
you know he's like, you know, atthe end of the day there's
still one promo away, you know,like from it's like they have
the money to do it, they havethe team to do it.
If you have that one promo, it'slike such a hits based business
that if you can, you know, keep, keep a core there.
And that was really our fear, orthe thing that we guarded
against when we went throughlike layoffs and went through

(27:29):
difficult decisions was, youknow, we're like there comes a
certain point where you cutbeyond, coming back Like we have
to keep a certain amount ofthis and and um and so once we
sort of went through all thatand we started to see just a
little bit of success, we reallytried to hammer the lead gen
and just said like, hey, we'rejust going to close our eyes and

(27:50):
buy traffic, because if wedon't do that, then we do have
the hit launch.
We don't have people there towatch it, and so I think that's
the interesting thing aboutthese businesses, where it's
like you could look at abusiness and say, oh, they used
to be at this and now they'reonly at this, but really they
used to be at this and nowthey're only at this, but really
they're one hit away fromgetting the train going again.

(28:11):
So it's a good and bad thingwith the volatility.

John Newtson (28:15):
Yeah, I think that piece of the volatility side of
promo and acquisition isdefinitely something that a lot
of people coming into the spacearen't familiar with.
Um, that there is.
Like you know, there have beenpromos and it's happened.
It doesn't happen as regularlyas we would all like, but it
happens enough where there's apromo that you see somebody

(28:37):
bring in 200,000 customers in ayear, right On, and you're like
Holy crap, that's an amazing.
And it's happened so often thatyou know it's out there, right.
Um, it's's just you can neverpredict when they're going to
hit um and so like, yeah, thingscan come back.

(28:58):
I think, structurally,businesses are different and
there's different goals.
Like there was a, you knowthere was a period of time when,
you know, uh, the idea of beinga billion, three or whatever it
was in subscription sales waslike this is just the new normal
for them.
Um, but then there was always avoice I think it was mark ford
always like you know, it's theright size business.
And so the question there hasbecome you know, what is the

(29:21):
right size of a publishingbusiness?
And is having so many two tothree hundred million dollar
publishing franchises the rightmodel or not?

Morgan Busby (29:31):
Yeah, yeah, and it's a tough it's.
It's a tough question.
I think it's easy to answerphilosophically and I think,
like I've got a number in mindthat I think works, that that is
good, but the I think the hardpart is then you get to that
number and you have a workingoffer and you have a team that's
motivated, know, like, like the, the people that are going to

(29:51):
get you to a number like thataren't aren't the type of people
that, once you get to a numberlike that, that are going to say
, okay, hey, I'm happy with youknow, happy with where we are.
And I, you know, another personI talked to that was, uh, kind
of helped lead, lead a goreduring that that boom time, and
I want to say his name just incase he doesn't want it public.

(30:12):
But he's said before, like Iwould never sell over this many,
like I would never have a promogo over this many customers you
know, like this many tens ofthousands of, like I would just
cut it off.
I remember asking him and so,well, how do you tell you know,
tell your editor that, how youtell your copy team or your
media team?
He's like, honestly, I'd payhim double and just shut it down
.
You know he's like it's notworth the headache and and um

(30:35):
and all that and it's not.
It's not in the sense that,like anything changes between 10
000 customers, 20 000, likeit's like the product's still
the same, the copy's still thesame, your compliance is still
the same.
It just opens up.
You know a lot.
You know like customer serviceissues and having to hire and
build up your team.
You know, if we had been at 50people you know as a, as a team

(31:14):
at the time and and had to likewe probably could have turned it
around much faster, you knowthan with where we are, cause
it's like so many more steps andplanning and things that you
have to do once you reach acertain you know certain numbers
of subscribers.

John Newtson (31:25):
Yeah, yeah, and I do think that to your point
before about opportunities forsmall groups to hit maybe $15,
$20, $30 million and reallyfocus in on a subset of the
market, I do think that that'sone of the things that probably
people should be looking at nowis that there are, like I said,
much bigger customer segments.

(31:45):
I mean there's whole differentlike competitive categories now
in FinPub, from like kind of theinvestment newsletter to trader
education to kind of thecommunity models of Discord
groups and things like that toyou know and everything in
between, that are large enoughsegments that people can build a
position in that category.

(32:08):
That is, I think, in a way, itmakes them kind of like there'll
be volatility because as thatcategory goes up and down,
especially if it's sectorspecific, you'll have more, but
like there can be some morestability in kind of the core
business because you can build,you know, like when let me
phrase it this way when theindustry was growing as a whole,

(32:30):
it's much easier to keep a highchurn model right where it's
like we're just going to putstuff out out the door.
The product might not be asgood as the promo um, but
there's always more customers.
And then as people start tobuild out positions and take
more and more spaces, then, likethe goal would be to get to
lower churn models where, likeno, like this is the guy for

(32:52):
this Right and I love him andI'm going to stick with him, and
so that that that can buildsome, that renewal revenue
becomes more important.

Morgan Busby (33:00):
Yeah, and I think that's that's a key of of
looking at.
It's like the formulas, less,almost like less customers hire
LTV, you know, and again, that'snot like groundbreaking, I
think, like anyone would be like, well, duh, like but it.
But I think in this modelthere's still people that are,
if they're really excited aboutit, like they're happy to buy a

(33:23):
new product or buy youradditional, you know additional
product, and that was one thingwith when we sort of worked on
turning the business around.
Probably one of the easiestlevers we pulled was just
raising the prices.
You know, like of getting awayfrom 997 to 19, going to 1997,
or going from 1997 to 29, youknow 97, and uh, and obviously

(33:45):
there's a, there's a certainpoint there that makes sense.
But if the value, you know, ifthe value to the consumer is
good enough and and you seerefund rates go down, which
means customers are, you know,are happier, uh, generally
speaking, and uh, so it's, it'slike one of those levers that I
think you're, you're always alittle bit afraid to pull, you
know, just because it's like, oh, that's a, it's a big jump.

(34:07):
Um, the pool, you know, justbecause it's like, oh, that's a,
it's a big jump.
But if, if the you knowproduct's good enough, it'll,
it'll end up working out andthat changes the mark, you know,
changes the margins and changesthe difference of maybe an
offer that wouldn't work, thatthen does work and and it's like
it filters down to every aspectof the business.
Yeah, yeah, and so now you guyshave I mean, how many different

(34:35):
groups do you kind of have runin separate franchises, so
everything's now under with, youknow, with kind of like one one
group.
You know we used to have a lotof these external partnerships
and those have have either beenspun off you know like spun off
or or or consolidated, you knowwholly internally off, or were
consolidated wholly internally.
But we've got eight differenteditors.
We've got two new ones that arestarting, one that's an editor

(34:55):
who's been in the industry for awhile and one that actually was
a student or a subscriber ofone of our current editors,
which those are always reallypowerful stories where you have
someone that came in, bought theproduct, used the product, had
real, real success, you know,with that, with a strong,
audited track record, and thenhas the ability to be able to

(35:18):
talk, to talk about it justcomes off as a very authentic,
you know, experience, and so sowe'll have hopefully you have 10
, you know, by the by the end ofthe year.
So we'll have hopefully have 10, you know, by the by the end of
the year.
And, and I'd say we've kind ofdiversified in that sense of
just having like multiple offerslike the way we do promotions

(35:38):
now.
It's very like market catalystdriven, and that's one thing.
I think that's a bit of amisnomer is you know some people
are like, oh, it's either amacro idea or it's a trading
idea.
Misnomer is, you know somepeople are like, oh, it's either
a macro idea or it's a tradingidea, and what we found the most
powerful thing on the tradingside is actually having some
type of macro idea tied to it.
You know, to have a catalyst,if we just do a trading promo

(35:59):
that's around, you know, like atraditional systems promo,
compare that to a webinar thathas you know something that's
big macro.
You know in the environmentgoing into that, we'll see such
better engagement on that likemacro based based catalyst and
uh, but, but the ability ofdoing that like we do a lot of
like webinar decks instead offull.

(36:21):
You know VSL promos.
That was another change we madeLike when we went through all
the all.
The transition is you know itwas like so cost intensive to.
You know have a copywriterwrite you know this huge script
and then you know it goesthrough compliance.
Then you set a film date, yougo film it, you wait three more
weeks and it's like the marketsare so dynamic, by the time you

(36:42):
have your you know your cryptopromo ready, crypto's back in
the gutter and nobody cares, orvice versa, or it doesn't work
and it's like you spend all thistime so.
So we really went to much moreof a like.
Let's go very like, you know,kind of catalyst driven trading
idea, run the webinar on it, getthe deck turned around, and so.
So we've taken the process whereit used to be.

(37:03):
It's just like, and maybe it'slike something that copywriters
decided, you know, years ago.
We're, hey, one promo every twomonths.
That's our limit of having ourcopy team really being able to
turn out a significant amount ofpromotions month after month or
within a couple weeks, and thenupdating and tweaking.

(37:25):
So it's one of those things Ithink, like it works for our
business.
It might not work, for, youknow, for business and I think
that's one of the things thatyou learn over time is like
there's no one way to do thisbusiness.
Like there's successful macrofranchises at Agora that just
have the traditional VSL.
There's, you know, tradingeducation firms.

(37:46):
There's the Discord guy youknow that none of us know about.
That's probably the best yearever, and so it's just really
finding, like, what works withyour model and your strength and
being able to play to that.

John Newtson (37:57):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's.
I think that's very true.
I think that you know there'slike the number of offers out
the door is one of those coremetrics.
I think that, like nothing else, if you don't know anything
else number of offers at thedoor, like is one of those
things that, like, makes a hugedifference on the business.
And then, um, yeah, like thekind of just different

(38:18):
approaches anymore, like one ofthe it's, it's one of like the
to me it's like the double-edgedsword of FMS, right, like is
that, hey, we highlight what'ssuccessful, it's working as a
kind of an educational piece.
And then, like everyone's like,oh well, I should do that, right
.
It's like no, no, no, no, no,no wait, you should understand
that that doesn't necessarilymean you should do that.
Um, and that's a harder thingto you know, to talk to people

(38:42):
about.
Like, you can't sustain the ifyou're a one shop, one man shop,
doing, you know, um, afront-end sub stack newsletter
and you want to do the lifetimeback ends of, you know, market
wise.
And agora, it's not so easybecause, like, the whole point
of doing that is to move cashforward to invest in acquisition

(39:02):
.
And if you're not doing paidacquisition, um, you know, you
don't have the same product mix,the same teams, the same any
anything.

Morgan Busby (39:10):
Yeah, same with the value.
Like if you're one person, youhave one product or two products
, it's hard to justify a largebundled price.
So, I was like, oh, if Isubscribed to everything, it
costs me two grand a year.
So why would I pay?
You know, five, 10, 15, 20,where it's like if you have a

(39:32):
ton of products, then it's a loteasier to right for the
consumer to understand like,okay, I'm, I'm gonna buy all
these, it's gonna cost me this,so I'll just, you know, do a
bundle and so it's, yeah,there's, you know it's, the
advantages, disadvantage.
It's like you know, if you'reyou're small, you can move
quickly, you can try new ideas,you can test things.
You can also probably testthings cheaply.
You know, like it's, it'sdifficult and there's there's
ideas we have now that like welook at and we're like god, it

(39:54):
could work, but like it mightnot be worth the effort to
really, you know, to, to test itor do it, and so it's like you
miss out on some of those thingsas well yeah, so how do you
think then you know youmentioned earlier we can get to
it that this whole last fewyears has changed, like your,
your perspective on risk andtaking risks.

John Newtson (40:13):
And is that what you mean?
Right, there, is that it's.

Morgan Busby (40:15):
Yeah, a lot on like your, your timeshare and
and things that, like thingsthat I would, you know, not get
involved in risk in the, in thesense it's like, hey, we'll do
it because it will make money.
If it's not a good thing orwhatever, not in that regard,
but just more of like spreadingourselves too thin.
And again, that's something Ithink that you've seen Matt do a

(40:39):
good job of staying focused andhe'll post every now and then
someone's like, oh, hey, youshould be a publishing company,
why don't you?
You know, why don't you do that?
He's like, ah, it's not what wedo, you know.
And obviously he's thoughtabout it, like I'm sure he's
gone down the rabbit hole oflike what it would take and do
this and that, and maybe one dayhe does it or one day he
doesn't.
But like he's had that singularfocus of I'm going to grow, you

(41:10):
know, grow market beat and do areally good job with that.
And so I think that's been um,kind of kind of the main thing
of of just saying like, hey, Iwant to, like I've only got a
certain amount of time and focusand capital and this is what I
want to, you know, put, put myefforts into yeah, and but you
do have like.

John Newtson (41:25):
So you had a almost like a very loosely
expanding ecosystem and nowyou've consolidated it back into
a tighter kind of functionalspace.
But because you have enough ofan ecosystem there, um, in terms
of number of products andeditors and franchises, or you
know, the customer comes in, itseems like you have, like on an
ltv basis or a churn basis, likesomebody comes in the door.

(41:46):
There you can, can.
You can monetize them betterthan if you still just had, like
you know, one or two guys,right.

Morgan Busby (41:54):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, it's a big.
So so for example and I'll justshare, share some numbers when,
when we run externaladvertising, we do a lot of lead
gen to like a webinar, so sothat's sort of our, our whole.
We've got a few like front endsbut but they're mostly tripwire
.
You know like $5 cheat sheettype thing, uh, but for the most

(42:15):
part most of our advertisinggoes through a Legion.
It's Legion to a webinar andand we might make back, you know
30%.
You know we call it funnel ROI,which is just like day zero,
zero revenue.
So which, obviously you do themath of that.
It's like we're losing 70%, youknow from from days, if another
dollar doesn't come in, we'velost you know 70% of whatever,

(42:40):
whatever we spent on ads.
But I think because we haveenough products established that
we'll see people who andbecause we do lead gen that's
another thing you know a lot ofpublishers will just do, you
know, like VSL to buy.
You know like they're justtrying to get the buyers, they
just care about buyers cominginto their file, and so we'll
see people who come in the freeside that don't buy, that then
they buy something later.
We'll see people who buy, thengo on to buy, you know, to buy

(43:01):
other products.
So so we're able to to scalelead gen based on that at that
30% rate.
I have some offers that might be80% or 100%.
Those are obviously the ones wetry to spend as much as
possible.
But we've really gone out withjust much more of a hey.
We know these traffic sourceswork long term.

(43:23):
If we can hit a minimumbaseline, we'll almost take as
much, as you know, as as much aswe can get, and the more offers
we have, the easier it is.
Because you know, with like anemail list, you know maybe we
could spend 50 grand off oneoffer, but if we have 10 offers,
you know we can spend two tothree times that.
So, uh, so it's it's been a umbenefit of having like all those

(43:47):
offers going.
So even if we have a suboptimaloffer, we'll still run traffic
to it just because we have faithor trust that knowing it's the
right type of lead will work outto the ecosystem.
And I think the other thingthat's a big change and this is
something that someone atMarketWise had shared with me is
they didn't put a lot of andthis a couple of years ago

(44:08):
didn't put a lot of faith intodupes.
You know so.
So like you work with someaffiliate and I know a lot of
this from the media side backwhen we'd work with people, some
people would be like, oh, youknow, I don't want any dupes, or
use the suppression file andother people, many different
lists.
You know it's like they're notjust your customer, they're uh,

(44:31):
you know they're also on, youknow, xyz trading list and they
bought products from this person.
It's like buyers.
You know buyers tend to buy andso, having that understanding,
it's like look, if we buy them,you know, if we buy them on this
list and we buy them on thisother offer later that month,
like, like, it's not that big adeal, it shows that they're

(44:52):
interested in our stuff.
I think if we tried to my guesswould be if we tried to like
utilize a suppression file itwould really hurt our business.
It cut our lead budget downsignificantly.
But I think it cut our revenuedown because people you know are
so less engaged now, like whenI mentioned the trading pub
numbers early on, you know we'dhave 50 or 60% of the people
show up in a webinar.

(45:13):
Now you might have 10%, youknow right.
So it's like there's just somuch stuff that people are
inundated with that it's hard toget that attention.

John Newtson (45:22):
Yeah, and I think it's so interesting.
You actually shared this withme.
This was, I don't know, fiveyears ago.
We were talking about lists andyou had a list where you were.
You were saying that, um, thesame email address on the same
list, or on multiple listsgetting the same promo, but of
all the lists that they're on,they would only buy from one of

(45:45):
them.
Maybe, right so they're gettingthe emails, they might even
open them over here, but forwhatever reason, this one list
is the one where they're gettingthe emails.
They might even open them overhere, but, for whatever reason,
this one list is the one wherethey buy from.
They don't buy from over here,they buy from this list.
Yeah, so it's the same dude, um,on different things and that,
and my thought was that whateverlist that is could change over
time.
Right, so it.

(46:06):
Maybe it switches to somebodyelse's list, right, buying there
for this year.
He's buying over there.
Yeah so, um, you, you have theemail address, but you don't
necessarily have the attentionall the time yeah, yeah, it's
like the mind share.

Morgan Busby (46:18):
You know, like, do you have the mind share?
And then that goes back to yourcontent quality.
You know it also goes back tothe text.
You know email deliverability.
Understand that understanding.
You know email deliverability,understand that, understanding
what you know and this has beena discussion in the like FMS pro
channel like how much is toomuch?
You know, like like, hey, if wesend an email, we make money.
Well, if you send two emails,you make twice as much money If

(46:39):
you send three.
At what point?
You know, like, at what pointis that tipping point?
Where it's it's not ideal forthe customer.
One of the areas, too, we'vebeen focusing on is like
thinking like what are differentcommunication channels or
networks that can be, you know,positive to have that you know,
like to get out of the emailclutter or, um, you know

(46:59):
whatever, to to be able to totalk to consumers.
And then like the level ofcontent.
So it's like we might advertisemore in email than we would on
SMS, where SMS has more contentbased.
Or might you know, like justdifferent channels that we use
where it's like, hey, this mightvery active with content they
put out, you know, throughoutthe day and they'll have a

(47:21):
higher show up rate when they doa webinar than someone that
just does the once a week, youknow, or three times a week
e-letter.
So it's an interesting like.
I mean, it's totally true.
I don't have the exact numbers,I can just from like knowing the

(47:43):
difference of show up rates onand I'm sure we could figure it
out, but it wouldn't reallyprove anything other than just,
hey, put out better content, youknow, engage with your
customers more.
So it's an interesting, youknow, it's an interesting facet
like to think through.
Those are like all the littlethings down the road that then
make a difference of, yeah, ofone guy having a launch that's,
you know, two times bigger thanthe other person because he

(48:05):
engages his customers.
You know, for the past two orthree months, right.

John Newtson (48:09):
Yeah, I think that that's that.
That's counterintuitive.
Um to a lot of people that morecommunication can be better
than less.
Yeah, I think, yeah, so whatelse?
So, what else?
I mean?
What am I not thinking abouthere that, like you think, is
important in the industry rightnow?

Morgan Busby (48:25):
um you, know, you know I, I think honestly, a big
thing is just the shots on goal.
You know like a uh and thewhole like good verse, great.
You know like arguments of, ofthings and that's that's worked
for us, where it's like let'sjust try to get us get stuff out
.
Get stuff, you know like getsome feedback rather than like

(48:46):
trying to make it.
You know completely from andthis is more from like a copy.
You know like a copy standpoint.
I think, like you know, uh, 80%promo that goes out today could
be more valuable than a hundredpercent promo that goes out two
months from now, just because ofall the changes in the market.
And you can always go back.
It's like if, if an 80% promoworks, you can always go back

(49:07):
and tweak it and re-lead it andspend time on it.
So I think that the quicker youcan get something out to get
customer feedback, the betterchance of success you're going
to have, which is a hard thingto do with some people because
it's like, no, this isn't theway I want it, but it's like
that might not move the you know, move the needle anymore and I

(49:29):
think as people's attentionspans change, it may even
becomes even more important.
You know to the that it's likeyou know they won't pay
attention that long, or?

John Newtson (49:42):
but it's, it's so weird, Like to me, like how the
amount I think this is part ofthe amount of content that I
consume that something that Iwas interested in last week if I
didn't do anything else with it, and it pops up again.
Sometimes it's like, oh, thatwas so long ago.

Morgan Busby (50:01):
Yeah, Like years ago, it'd have been like that
last week is fresh in my mind,but now it feels like, oh,
that's so long ago, yeah yeah,there's so much you know with
books and podcasts and andthat's another thing it's like,
oh, we should start a podcast,you know, or we should start,
it's like want to do everything,but it's like let's just focus
on things we can be, you know,be impactful and and concentrate

(50:25):
our efforts there yeah, yeah,no, definitely, mission creep is
definitely easy to happen incontent, um, so that's awesome.

John Newtson (50:34):
We're gonna appreciate it.
I'm glad to get you on here.
Um, you know there's we diveinto all kinds of little things,
but maybe another time, likeyour view, and going to the
intricacies of partnering withpeople would be awesome, because
I know you've done so much andso much experience there, but
that would be a whole otherconversation.

Morgan Busby (50:50):
So yeah, I think just a real quick on that, like
the best thing, the best thingto do is just think through, you
know like, just think throughany scenario, that like business
scenario that could come up,like everything from how fast
you want to scale, how big youwant to get, how much you want
to put into it if the ideadoesn't work, and and put that
also like down on paper, like isand and it's not a not like a

(51:14):
lack of trust, but I thinkthere's everyone has their own
perception.
You know, like, even when youhave a conversation you've done
like I think everybody inbusiness has dealt with this
where it's like, ah, that's notwhat we talked about.
It's like, no, it's what I hadin my head, that you know you
had a different thing and so Ithink it can just make it a lot.
You know a lot smoother processof um, and that's like if
you're an employee, you'retalking about a bonus or you're

(51:35):
talking about a goal or anythinglike that, Like I would just
say, hey, just as a follow-up,this is what we're.
You know, like, three or fourbullets, this is what we're
agreeing on, Right, lot of youknow a lot of conflict and the
potential conflict in the futureof um of working through that.

John Newtson (51:54):
Yeah, yeah, that makes total sense, so awesome.
Well, thanks, morgan.
Um, we will.
Uh, if anyone, we are in FMSseason in terms of, like you
know, we're only a few monthsaway at this point and you know
we're going to need sponsoredand been a major part of FMS
since the very beginning, whichI really appreciate.
It probably wouldn't havehappened continually in those
first few years without yoursupport, um, and so anyone who

(52:16):
wants to come to fms, like youknow, meet morgan.
Everybody else will all bethere, get the industry together
, do a lot of deals, see what'sworking in detail and, yeah, it
should be fun, yeah, yeah yeah,and I'll say I think I say this
at the conference like it's ourbest ROI of any dollar spent.

Morgan Busby (52:33):
And the ROI is not just like we learned this tip
at the conference, but likestill, I'll have people that
maybe I met at FMS several yearsago.
Eventually, you know, it's likethere's not a fit then, but
then two years, three years,four years later, something

(52:53):
opens up, get a text, get a call, hey, let's talk about this and
see you, you have a deal cometogether.
So I think just like investingin, like investing in those
relationships, just opens up theopportunity and even the you
know like with with VNR thatcame through FMS, like I met,
met, uh, the VNR group with youknow, like Richard and Nicholas
who are here, they came to FMSseveral times.
Mark Breda was the vnr groupwith you know, like richard and

(53:15):
nicholas, who are here, theycame to fms several times.
Mark brada was there.
So it's like that would have,you know, maybe never happened,
maybe would have happened, whoknows, but like the fact that we
met at fms was like the initiallaunching point of that.
So really would encourageeveryone and it's good to be in
person, like we were justtalking about, like the online
verse, in person stuff, likeanytime I have to travel now
like I dread it.
But then every time I get backI'm like I'm glad, I, you know
glad I did that or went to that.
So yeah, it's not.
It's awesome that it's now, Iguess, 11th year or 12, I don't

(53:38):
think it'd be the 11th, yeah,the 11th year.
Uh is an awesome you knowawesome accomplishment to be
around through that andhopefully, hopefully, the start
of another boom you know boomcycle as much as we learn in the
bear cycle.
It's time to uh, time to get aneasier path, yeah for real, for
real Awesome.

John Newtson (53:58):
Thanks Morgan, thanks John, All right, see ya.