Andrew Ruditser - They "SEO" me Rollin' - I Took a Hike

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Alright, Andrew Ruditzer, are you okay with
being recorded for a podcast?

Speaker 2 (00:05):
I am Darren Mass.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Well, there goes that liability.
This is.
I Took a Hike.
I'm your host, darren Mass,founder of Business Therapy
Group and Parktime WildernessPhilosopher.
Here we step out of theboardrooms and home offices and
into the great outdoors, wherethe hustle of entrepreneurship
meets the rustle of nature.
In this episode, we ventureinto the remarkable life of
Andrew Ruditzer, a trailblazerwho co-founded MaxBurst and

(00:29):
continues to inspire as avisionary entrepreneur.
Our topics include experiencesas a first-gen American from
Russia, invaluable website andSEO tips, the mysteries of AI's
destiny and unveiling thecrucial role of the prompt
whisperer in our dynamic world.
Hike along with thisadventure-packed conversation.
When I took a hike with AndrewRuditzer, it wasn't until I

(00:57):
embarked on this podcast journeythat I realized the impact of
problem-solving in nature, andnow I would like to help you.
I invite you or your team tojoin me on a hike and experience
business therapy, all while onthe trail.
Visit itookahikecom for moreinformation on our hiking
therapy.
So nobody knows who you are butme, which is the beauty of this

(01:19):
episode.
You and I go way back.
It's going to be an interestingepisode because I've known you
since the days of your.
It's been a while, it's been aminute, as the youth would say
and we go back to college andwhat I will say is you became
very successful throughout thoseyears.
So we're going to hear thatsuccess journey and we're going

(01:40):
to hear all about AndrewRuditzer, maybe it's best to
start.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
I grew up in Brooklyn in a very Russian family.
I grew up speaking Russianbefore I ever even learned how
to speak English.
I actually learned how to speakEnglish when I went to school.
So over the years I lost alittle bit of that skill and
then gained it back and I movedto Long Island in eighth grade.

(02:06):
But it was really funny to mecoming from Brooklyn and just
being around a lot of differenttypes of people and situations
in Long Island where I actuallywas.
It was funny to be tested bysome of these kids at the time.
But what happened was I endedup actually making a lot of
friends and really loving livingthere and growing up there as

(02:29):
well.
So I went to high schoolafterwards and at that point my
dad and my mom mostly my dadwill kind of talk to me about so
what interests you?
What do you think you want todo?
Where are you headed?
I mean, who the hell knowsthese answers?

Speaker 1 (02:48):
At 14 years old.
No, I was already in highschool at 16.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
I don't know, I didn't know what I wanted to do,
but I always had a passion forcomputers.
I actually love technology andwhen I started in high school I
kind of played around withcomputers a little bit more.
Obviously things got a littlebit more sophisticated and my
uncle, Dimitri, who was anengineer I was always fascinated

(03:14):
actually going to his house healways had really cool computers
and he would take them apartand I was into these parts and I
asked a lot of questions.
So him and I would go on a lotof computer shows.
They used to have them in likeColiseums and stadiums.
They used to have these bigcomputer shows where people
would go.

(03:35):
I don't even know if they havethem anymore.
I don't see a reason why theywould.
You could buy everything onAmazon and other sites, but we
used to go to these shows and weused to just buy these parts
and we used to put togethercomputers and I got really good
at it and I really liked it.
So I started selling them.
When I was probably junior yearin high school.
I was building computers forpeople and it was fun and I

(03:57):
loved it and this was before youcould really use the internet
to its full capacity.
So I used to just learn a lotof this stuff myself, figure
things out.
So I had a little small sidebusiness, Little side hustle.
I was building computers forpeople, getting like little
orders, Nothing crazy, butlisten, I actually made a couple

(04:18):
of bucks, but I was always alsothe type of kid that would.
I always had a job.
I worked at numerous jobs.
One summer I worked in JonesBeach.
I was flipping burgers.
I hated that job.
Then I got a job at Walbamsupermarket where I was stocking
shelves.

(04:38):
I hated that job too.
I mean, basically I hated allthese jobs but you got to do
them.
I worked at a pet store, butanyway I was making a little bit
of money, learning how to get apaycheck, paying taxes.
I was paying for a car and alittle bit of money to go out.
Then, senior year, I started totry to apply for colleges, but

(05:02):
my grades weren't great so Ididn't really get accepted to a
lot of colleges or anything thatwould be, in my opinion,
worthwhile to really go.
To my parents, my dadespecially, advised me not to
make any choices.
He said that he wouldn't helpme with college because of my
grades.
So I ended up going to acommunity college for one year,

(05:23):
which, looking back at it, wasone of the best things I ever
did.
That's right, it was one of thebest things I ever did.
It was a great time for me toreally figure out exactly what I
wanted to do, not spend a lotof money on figuring that out
and experimenting.
I did really well in thecommunity college for one year.
What year school was that?
That was national communitycollege.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
That's right, and I also did a tour.
Yeah, I did a year tour there.
If it wasn't for that, you andI would never have met.
That's true.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, things happen for a reason.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
So well, let's take a pivot to the next chapter.
You were hustling all the wayup.
You make it from NCC.
You apply to RochesterInstitute of Technology for IT.
You meet me in PacSun.
I do.
We become BFF?
That's right.
All right, we even have thematching necklace with the

(06:13):
hearts that fit together.
I mean, maybe you do.
Oh wait, I forgot to give thatto you in 1999.
We go to school together, weparty together.
Yeah, we had some good times.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
We were in a fraternity together.
We exited that fraternitytogether.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
Long stories there that we don't need to go through
.
Yeah, but no, we enjoyed ourtime.
You leave college to go startyour own business, which is
where you currently are.
All right.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
So I left college actually to.
I was working for a companythat I had a co-op for.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
That's right, you did a short stint at this company.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
They hired me right out of college.
They gave me a pretty decentsalary.
For what?
Was it 2002?

Speaker 1 (07:03):
What was that salary?
62,000.
That was phenomenal and it's aphenomenal salary and that has
partially contributed orattributed to the fact that you
had work experience.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yes, so the difference is like you ended up
going and living on your own.
You had an apartment inManhattan.
Actually, no, you were inHoboken, I think.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
I was in Queens first .
Queens, that's right.
I lived.
I made it to Queens for a monthand realized that commute was
horrible, so I figured out howto stretch and move to Manhattan
.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
We both got jobs.
Originally we were working fora company, so I ended up coming
home for a little bit where thegoal was to work, save money and
be able to go out on my own.
I was working for this companyfor about, I would say, close to
maybe a year and a half to twoyears, and they treated me
really well.
I got a lot of experience there.

(07:59):
I worked at a lot of reallyinteresting places.
One of them I'll never forgetwas the Department of Health in
New York City.
I was commuting a lot back andforth to the city.
One of the days that I wasactually commuting to the
Department of Health was during9-11.
I was on the train heading intothe city and we stopped at

(08:21):
Jamaica Station.
We never, obviously got in.
We stopped at Jamaica Station,got out and then ended up
walking back.
So I was working for thiscompany for a little while, got
a lot of experience.
One of the biggest things thatI the takeaways was the
consulting aspect of it.
So what I realized was, I thinkmostly was how time is.

(08:49):
Time equals money, and I neverreally understood that.
I think the first time I reallytruly understood that was when
I was working for them becausethey were billing my time by the
hour, so you physically.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
Saw time as money.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
I physically saw it.
I mean they were.
I was keeping time sheets, Iwas doing very simple things as
far as record keeping andobviously their people on their
end would do whatever theyneeded to do to basically
present the reports to thecustomer.
But on my end I was keepingtrack of my time.
I was getting a salary.
So it really didn't matter howmuch time I was working, I was
getting the same salary.
But I started kind of realizing, you know, that important

(09:29):
aspect of life when you're doingthis is that time is money.
It's very valuable and youshould not take that for granted
because you can't take timeback.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
So we hear that all the time.
I mean that's a recurring themewith everything and you know,
we really do have to startthinking that way is that when
you are running a business,every minute you are spending on
a proposal is part of SG&Aselling, general and
administrative.
It's part of the cost ofacquisition of a client and you

(10:01):
have to be mindful of that.
And sometimes, if you areworking on trying to get a
prospective account and you'rejust spinning your wheels, it's
not wrong to ask the customerwhat their timeline is for them
to commit, because your time isvaluable, your time is money.
You're not going to be afraidto ask a client to say before we

(10:21):
go any further, are youcommitted to moving forward with
us, Because we've spent a lotof time working on your proposal
, your account, your objectives.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
I feel like a lot of people are almost embarrassed or
nervous, don't know how toapproach it, don't know how to
tell people that their time isvaluable.
They almost to me.
It almost feels like a lot ofpeople think that they're
insulting someone or it's a rudething to say.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
Hey listener, thanks for hiking along with us.
Discover more episodes atiTokaHikecom, or to recommend an
adventurous guest, apply to bea sponsor or to simply drop us a
line.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
At this point in my life I am learning that time is
important, but I'm still kind ofnot really confident in
pitching my time as beingvaluable.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
And I think that that is I'm looking on building that
up, that comfort level.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
I think that the people starting out at that age
around there should have someonethat really kind of tries to
mentor them and explains to themthat time is important and not
everyone's going to value yourtime equally.
You have to be realistic withyour skills and your time.
But the more comfortable youget with selling yourself and

(11:38):
your value, the more you'll getout of it.
That's right.
Okay, so I ended up leavingthis consulting company.
I was already 24.
There was a guy that I wasworking with who won't use names
for this, but he was older thanme, definitely more experienced

(11:58):
.
He was working for the samecompany.
He decided to leave on his ownand start his own consulting
company.
Now I had a skill set that heneeded.
I was developing in thisplatform and he was able to land
a client for this newconsulting company that he got
and he asked me to come along.

(12:18):
So I ended up speaking to mydad heavily about this and I
said, pa, I'm thinking aboutgoing out on my own, I'm going
to give up this salary, I'mgoing to go out and I'm going to
try this consulting businesswith this person that I've been
working with for almost twoyears.
What do you think?
And he said, all right, we'llorder the terms.

(12:39):
I told him, the terms that werepromised to me at the time.
He said to me, andrew, ifyou're going to do anything
right now, you should do it now.
You should take this risk now.
You don't have a family, you'renot married, you don't have
kids, your overhead is super low.
Just do it.
Just do it.
That was his advice to me.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
Recurring advice.
That was the same advice thatmy uncle gave me when I started
to contemplate going out on myown.
That is sage advice that evenif you know that advice, you
still need someone you trust totell it to you To advise you.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
If he wouldn't have basically said that, I would
have never done it.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
I believe that to be true, because your father, or in
any case of a mentor, isbasically saying you have a soft
landing.
What have you got to lose?
Your brain needed to hear that.
You needed to make thatconnection, and that was the
extra confidence to go out onyour own.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
And I don't know if you remember that far back, but
I consulted with you as well andwe spoke about it and I don't
remember.
I think you were at that pointalready starting something as
well, but my timeline is alittle fuzzy.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yeah, I think this was when I was still employed at
a company that I really lovedworking for.
I didn't have my concept.
You started your business waybefore mine and, by the way, I
looked up to you for startingthat and that's what helped me
build courage to start abusiness as well.
By the way, you are nowofficially a Times Square.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
I see we're approaching a pretty busy area.
No you're at Times Square oh,this is cool, I didn't see that.
Thanks, so, um.
So my dad helped me out, youknow, with this decision.
Um, he didn't convince me ofanything, he just guided me into
, you know, taking that, takingthat that path to try it out.
So I went on board um and wegot a little office and we had

(14:41):
some clients and we were doingsome work, but it was struggling
.
We weren't making any money, uh, and it was just just wasn't
going anywhere.
But what I learned was thatit's very important that if you
decide that, if you go intoanything, that you have a firm
agreement, a contract, not justan understanding, and people go

(15:02):
to business school, but I don'tthink there's any substitute for
when you actually do thisyourself in the real world.
That's right.
That was my second major lesson.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
Rit, and failing and getting your butt kicked will
teach you a much harder lessonand a much better lesson versus
just sitting in a classroom andstudying in notebooks.
Now you need to do both, butgetting kicked in the butt,
that's going to do a lot morefor you.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
So I definitely got kicked in the butt, that's for
sure.
I definitely got to go kick inthe ass, um, because what
happened was towards the end Istarted noticing that my
supposed partner at the time wasmaking deals with other people
trying to partner up Side hustle, and I was totally out of the

(15:46):
picture.
So I didn't really haveanything, any firm agreements or
anything like that.
So I just I couldn't take itanymore.
So obviously I just I just left.
But I learned a really valuablelesson from that too.
I think that was my secondvaluable lesson in this journey

(16:06):
that do not do anything that youvalue in business without a
firm agreement or a contract.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
That is right.
Legal Contracts are important.
Even if you are working withyour best friend, a family
member, contracts remind you ofthe things you agreed upon at a
moment in time.
Wow, that was slippery.
Yeah, um, technique.
Come on Forward Quick, weightforward and kick up.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
There you go, yeah Little climb, yeah, but it is
still moderate.
So I ended up leaving and fromthere I started completely on my
own.
I could have searched for a joband I thought about it, but I

(16:59):
decided that I was going to tryto continue this on.
Whew, it's nice, weirded Wellfrom that little climb, yeah,
especially since it was slippery.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
We got a couple of tricks up our sleeve, but this
is beautiful, all right.
So let's continue on with ourjourney.
You learned some hard lessons.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
I learned a hard lesson, but a very, really
valuable one.
So we so I left this officethat I was working with this guy
, that you know that I thoughtwe started something together
and it was ugly.
When I left, we uh we partedways in an ugly way.

(17:44):
I mean there was some cursingand you know there was some
visions in my mind of ofbasically knocking him out, but
you know the normal stuff.
And I ended up leaving and Iended up kind of at a crossroads
where I sort of was dabblinglike looking for a job and maybe
trying to start my own littleconsulting office.

(18:07):
So I decided to do that, startmy own little consulting office.
So I realized I actually boughta domain name in 97 called
maxburstcom and I had thisdomain name for a long time.
Great name.
So I decided that's going to bethe name of my consulting
company.
So I started maxbursttechnologies and it was really

(18:34):
an IT company and I was doing atthe time what I know best,
which is, you know, uh, break,fix, server repair, helping
people with email, just IT stuff.
I actually grew that um, prettyuh, pretty well at the time.
I had over a hundred clientsall across Long Island, uh, some

(18:59):
in Brooklyn, some in Queens,but I couldn't scale it really
well and I kind of hated my lifebecause I was on cold, 24 seven
.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
Don't do something you hate, I was just getting a
living, but you have to dothings you don't like in the
beginning while you're buildinga brand.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
I was making money.
It was the first time.
That was the first time that Ithink I made some money where I
was like, okay, this coulddefinitely be lucrative and I
was trying to scale it.
I was trying to do the rightthing, but it just wasn't
working out for me.
I was like I said I'm cold, 24,seven.
I couldn't get a really goodprocess down, so I sort of

(19:43):
decided to pivot in about 2000and uh, seven, close to 2008,.
I started to pivot because alot of my clients were actually
asking me for websites and I'm adeveloper but I'm not a
designer.
I have really no artisticabilities other than I could

(20:06):
tell you what I like when I seeit.
I'm building websites, reallykind of simple ones, because I'm
I'm a programmer by trade.
So I knew how to, uh, how tocode websites and I just loved
it Like it was.
It was just I don't know, it'slike it was just a breath of

(20:30):
fresh air is the way I coulddescribe it.
It was just everything about it, like creating for me actually
was very rewarding.
It was a passion for you, Idon't, you see, but it was a
passion that I didn't reallyknow that I was going to
ultimately end up it.
So you had a challenge thatfueled you or yearning for more.
I was creating websites for.

(20:51):
I started out creating websitesfor small businesses, all right
.
So there was a cool factor atfirst we started out with small
businesses that probably had aeither approaching a million in
revenue or a little over.
So you know, they they had.
It was a little bit more of abusiness that had some revenue,
that was looking for a digitalpresence online or professional
digital presence and they werelooking for a small agency to
work with and we were at thetime perfectly positioned in our

(21:15):
area to be that agency.
And people started finding usand I started running into a
challenge because I'm not adesigner and I do not have kind
of that artistic capability toactually take the website to a
whole level, because obviouslypeople know to create a website

(21:36):
is is a design and obviouslydevelopment and there's a lot of
strategies in between that aswell, but you have to make it
look right.
So I met my partner, who's mybusiness partner today, one of
my really good friends, closefriends, love.
This guy met him in closer to2008, 2007, 2008, through a

(21:58):
mutual friend of mine and hestarted helping me out with some
projects for design.
He was working full time foranother company, but he was.
He also had that kind ofentrepreneurial fire and drive
in him and he wanted to take onside gigs and his name was

(22:19):
Donnie.

Speaker 1 (22:20):
There you go.
I know Donnie very well.
Yes, he's a pretty cool human.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
He is one of the best , yeah, humans, he's, he's one
of the good ones, for sure,that's right.
And he's been your partner.
For how many years he's been?
He's been my partner for over15 years.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
And when you formed this partnership, you already
had a company.
So walk me through the processof offering equity to someone
who you didn't really know, Okay.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
So when we basically agreed that we were going to
work together because I wasinundating him with work and he
came to me and said, Andrew, Ican't do this anymore.
I can't work full time and takeon all of these projects we
were getting busy and it wasessentially in the beginning
just the two of us and maybe acouple of freelancers.
So he made the decision to gooff on his own with me, to leave

(23:06):
his job and start MaxBurstfully together.
Now, at the time it wasn'treally much of a risk to me to
become an equal partner with himbecause I was starting out the
whole web design and developmentend of it.
So I can't even really think ofthe IT part of it.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
All right, so you're starting out with zero,
essentially.
Yeah, so offering equity tosomeone who quickly built your
trust was not such a threat toyou.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
You saw that as equity in exchange for actual
value Right, and it's not likewe actually had customers
already and there was interestso we were starting out, but
it's not like we just sat therewaiting for the phone to ring.
We actually had real workalready Over time, short period
of time.
There was just this trust andthis bond of working together

(23:58):
and after a while that feelingof like he's not going to be the
one or he's going to leave mekind of just went away pretty
quick.
I mean, we were sitting in agrime office.
At first it wasn't anythingnice that you would want to show
up to work with amenities.
We weren't really making thatmuch money to keep somebody
coming in Every day.
He came in early, he provedhimself, he showed up, yeah, and

(24:21):
it's not like.
But he had the same passion anddrive you did, he did.
He really wanted to make thiswork we both did.
It was just the two of usreally in the beginning, like
most, I guess, really smallbusinesses that start out early
on I realized that that's thathe's definitely the person that
we can grow the company together.
You know, him and I, and wealso have the perfect

(24:44):
personalities, I think, inbusiness, or at least maybe in
general over all businesses, butespecially in mine.
When it comes to skill set, I'mtechnical, more business
oriented.
He had the artistic drive andthe vision of the company from a
brand standpoint, how he wantedclients to look.

(25:07):
He's also very process driven,where I'm a little bit more
chaotic.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
So that's important.
Right there is that when youina way you picked your partner,
you did not have to move forwardwith Donnie.
But what helped you create thisgreat company and this hustle
and drive from the beginning wasthe fact that he did all of the
things that you weren't greatat.
Those were notdesign was notyour strength right, so he
filled that gap in, whereas thesales aspect I know Donnie very

(25:32):
well.
He can sell, but he's not goingto be the guy that's going to
pitch and hunt for leads and gofind new business where you are.
So you guys have this perfectmarriage and I will say, in
knowing both of you, you do havegreat personality alignment
where there's no ego involved.
There's no, I worked harderthan you versus the other.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah, that never, honestly, all these years.
I can't even remember thatstatement that you just made.
I can't even remember one timethat ever came up, ever in the
long period of time that we'vebeen working together where I
felt like I was doing more.
I can't say anything actuallyfrom on his standpoint, but we
both worked really hard to inthe beginning and to build this

(26:20):
company up.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
Now would you say by having a partner, it helped
boost your confidence and yourability to be more successful.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
Do you think you would have been?

Speaker 2 (26:30):
successful without Donnie?
No, I don't.
I attribute all my success soimportant when ever we got.
The point that we got to andwherever we're going is
definitely equally shared.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
And that right there is your secret sauce.
And that's not even ahesitation for me to say that
that's your secret sauce, thefact that you could fully admit,
without ego, that your partnerhelped boost you, you helped
boost him and you do it together.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:02):
Right.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
Now, not every partnership works out,
unfortunately.
I coach several clients wherethe partnerships have dissolved
a long time ago and it's like abad marriage and a lot of that
has to do with ego, but themajority of that has to do with
the it's not fair mentality thatus humans have, where one
partner works a heck of a lotharder than the other and the

(27:22):
other one is lazy, and that,from what I've noticed, stems
from too many friends startingbusinesses together.
One friend is stronger than theother, that friend is pulling
the weight for both and the it'snot fair mentality kicks in
into resentment and it destroysthe company.
I'm not saying that youshouldn't go into business with

(27:46):
a friend, but you better makesure that your friend does an
equal amount of work prior andnot make an excuse for they'll
improve over time because itdoesn't work out that way.
Yeah, yeah, I agree with that.
All right.
So, max Burst, web design.
What else do you do besidesdesign websites?

Speaker 2 (28:07):
Well, look, in the beginning that's what it was.
It was just doing websites,building them, designing them,
launching them.
The company has definitelyevolved a lot in the services
and offerings I mean we do.
We're a true digital agency.
We do everything, from strategy, growth, branding, messaging,

(28:28):
positioning we basically doeverything.
When it comes to a businessneeding a partnership with a
digital agency, you just gonnahold this up for a little bit
For success.
You should.
It's a great rock.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
This is very nice, very cool Glacial deposit.
So you do everything in adigital agency world.
You basically are the outboundview of a company.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
We basically try to position ourselves strategically
as a digital agency forcompanies that are looking to
grow and that are looking tobetter manage the digital
presence online, whether it'scollecting leads or trying to
just kind of offer that moreprofessional messaging when
people land on their website.
I mean, listen, today I don'tcare what business you're in.

(29:14):
I mean, whenever you're tryingto find a company, whether it's
big or small, you're gonna go ontheir website and you're gonna
take a look at them and if it'shokey, if it just doesn't look
the part, then that's the firstimpression that it'll give you
when you start to want to dobusiness with them.
So what does a good websitecost these days?
Well, that's a very toughquestion to answer.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
Well, I ask tough questions.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
Because it's like asking how much is a cost to
drive a car today.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
Okay, and I actually let's take a step back.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
And I say that to a lot of people.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
Let's take a step back this way.
If you can't tell me what it'sgoing to cost for a good website
today, I could tell you what westart at.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
So, look, you can do it yourself, which I encourage.
A lot of people that arestarting out that are very
budget oriented, they should tryit.
Attempt it themselves.
Now, again, I mean, most peoplecan't do it, it's just the way
it is.
They just cannot figure it outor they don't have the time.
They're focused on their ownbusinesses.
So what does it cost to?

(30:15):
You can hire a freelancer.
Maybe for a few thousanddollars or so, you could
probably get a kind of apre-canned looking website.
Okay, no strategy or anythinglike that, just you know, here's
the template.
I'll slap some content.
Today it's AI generated content.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
We're going to talk about AI in a little bit.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
Oh yeah, I got a lot of insights on that.
So I would definitely say totry it out.
If it's an e-commerce site,shopify, you could try that
yourself too.
And then, when a company getsto a certain level and they have
much more strict requirementsand they work with, they have an

(30:55):
internal marketing department,they're going to align
themselves with the digitalagency that could bring their
vision to life.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
All right.
So what is the starting pointfor a custom website?

Speaker 2 (31:07):
Well, for us the starting point is 25,000.
Okay, 25,000.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
For other agencies it's different.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
So, across the board, what does 25,000 get you?
So 25,000 gets you projectmanagement, dedicated project
manager, a team which is a webdeveloper, a designer Okay so
this is steep, yeah, and you getstrategy.
You're basically paying.
You're hiring an agency likeMax Burst for a turnkey process.

(31:37):
The only thing that we rely onthe clients for is just their
feedback and be involved in theproject, because we don't want
to surprise anyone.
We want to be able to kind ofshare in the vision.
So we have a way of doingprojects and we just asked that
the client is involved in it.
Okay, so you're getting a team.
Awesome, take a look at that.

(31:59):
We're not crossing that already.
Yeah, we are.
Oh, really, yeah, that'sinteresting.
Why is that interesting?
So I don't know, is that abridge or just a bunch of sticks
that are laying on the ground Abunch of logs across water,
okay.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
Ready to have a?

Speaker 2 (32:11):
little water?
No, all right, but I'd rathernot step into it, so don't, I'll
try.
Do you want me to go first oryou?
I'll try it.
Okay, is there a certain waythat you would do this?

Speaker 1 (32:21):
There is a technique, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
Just don't fall.
Yeah, okay, so if that's thetechnique, then oh look, do you
see that Fish?
Look, it's a little frog.
There's frogs everywhere, doyou see it?

Speaker 1 (32:37):
Yeah, Did you notice that frog?
Just so you can grab thatbranch and not fall.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
Well, I just wanted to try to position myself a
little better.
Gotcha, gotcha, listen, I mean,it's not like I do this three,
four times a week Like you do.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
No, but you know balances, everything All right.
So 25 grand gets you a truecustom site.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah.
When we first started out, wewere charging about $350 to $500
a website.
Okay, Wow, that's pretty low.
Well, it was a much differentwebsite, yeah, different process
, and we were just trying tomake ends meet.
Yeah, yeah, but that's what wewere starting at, and getting

(33:25):
those kind of smaller sites andthose dollar amounts actually
did get us a lot of clients.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
Well, yeah, you built up a business, you built up a
brand, but you were moreaccessible to work.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
Your volume of clients, but we were working
nonstop, nonstop.
But that's what you need in abusiness, and the business was
not growing.
Yeah, so it did put us on themap somewhat, which helped, but
we quickly realized that we'renot going to build anything if
we're going to offer the sameprice point for the amount of
work that we're doing.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
Yeah, as your competitors as well.
All right, so what's the mostexpensive website?

Speaker 2 (34:03):
you've ever done.
Some of these projects turninto over seven figures, oh well
, over a million for sure.
Wow In billable hours Prettylucrative.
Yeah, yeah, it's a verydifficult business to run
because you are you're workingin, like most businesses, but
you're working in with a lot ofchallenges.
You have the challenges of theclient, obviously, and the

(34:26):
requirements and theexpectations.
You also have the challengesand the fact that it's a
creative field.
So you're not selling a, you'reselling a service.
Yes, you're definitely notselling a product.
Yeah, you're selling a service,but the service is very
subjective to the design.
People don't appreciatesometimes what happens in the
background from a developmentstandpoint.

(34:46):
They just want the thing towork, so they look at it more
from a front end standpoint.
So sometimes you know you'llget a client that's just really
picky and just doesn't know whatthey want, and it takes
experience Does that happenoften.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
We're clients just they have an idea, but then they
don't really know what theywant.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
So good question it does and through experience and
doing this so many times andjust working through it, you
have to have a process, you haveto be confident and you have to
handhold the client.
You have to make the clientfeel that they hired you and you
are the boss.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
Okay, Not the other way around.
So your process is you reallylead the charge?
You have to, you have to, youhave to part-hitting questions
where you're asking the clientsto describe their needs, wants,
desire for the site and thenyour level setting expectations,
but you're helping bring thestory out of them.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
Yes, in the beginning we made so many mistakes that
would drive a lot of businessesto go out of business or just to
the point where they would justthrow their hands up in there
and walk out.
Okay, and because we didn'treally have like, as we were
doing this, we didn't have aprocess that we could, that
rules that we can kind of go by.
So we would I don't want to saywing it, but we would be

(35:58):
committed to the project, wewould get it done, but we would
let the clients take advantageof us in a major way.
I mean, we would do endlessrevisions endless oh.
So take advantage of you withscope creep essentially Well,
not just yeah, scope creep,because a lot of clients don't
even understand what scope creepis and why it is a thing.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
Oh, could we just add this or oh, could we do that?
Not realizing that that oneminor change in your mind
requires a lot of heavyuplifting in code?

Speaker 2 (36:26):
It's going back to the first main rule that I
learned early on is time ismoney and you can't get stuck in
endless amounts of revisionsand a process that's going
nowhere and letting the clienttake advantage of you.
That's right.
So you know, when you are amature company and you have much

(36:47):
more experience, you can guidethat process and you can set
those expectations first, reallyearly on, with the client so
they know what they're signingup for.
And even then that's achallenge because a lot of
clients will sign up for stuffbut they don't always truly know
exactly what they're gettinginto.
But you guide them through theprocess.
And also, I mean a big part ofthis is that now, thankfully, we

(37:08):
have a big staff.
We have really talented people,talented, experienced people,
project managers that areworking with us and they're
really good at setting thoseexpectations and sticking
through to the process to thepoint where Donnie and I are
sort of just really involvedright now on a very higher level
and kind of are there forguidance and to talk to clients

(37:31):
if they just so you're leading,you're managing, we are.
We took a big step back fromthe day to day because that was
actually something that our ownteam sort of kind of told us to
do, which is a good thing.
I think we might have been,towards the end, sort of doing a
lot of this kind of Not harm tothe company, but we were not

(37:53):
letting them do what they wantedto do.
So they told us to step away.
Let them kind of do it, andit's working out great.
That's a really good thing.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
What that tells me is your team has the trust and
faith in their leadership to notget overly upset with them if
they bring up some concerns, andthat being one concern is you
were over managing people thatwanted to rise up in their own
careers.
Yeah, we're cutting throughthis path by the way.
They also.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
You know, we also are lucky that we finally have a
core team of people that reallyvalue what they do.
They value the work, theclients, and they want to see
every project successful.
That's right, all right, we'realmost at the halfway point Wow,
how do you feel I?
Wish I had water.
You didn't bring water.
No, I didn't bring waterbecause, Awesome.

(38:44):
And now I feel bad together.
Why I've got plenty.
I have a liter and a half.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
What here?
Take it, don't have any, Idon't care.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
I'll take some.
I'm fairly certain we sharedbunks together in college.
How do you?

Speaker 1 (38:55):
What do I have to press this button Bite, bite,
bite on the tip lightly.
That sounded weird.
Hey, listener, thanks forhiking along with us.
Discover more episodes atwwwmoojiorg.
Discover more episodes atwwwhiketokahikecom.
Or to recommend an adventurousguest, apply to be a sponsor or
to simply draw us a line.
Good, thank you, you're welcome.

(39:18):
All right, I'm good.
Let's find the trail marker andkeep going.
I got to get one of those.
Yeah, hydration pack.
They're great.
Then you don't have to carryanything.
Yeah, all right.
So let's talk, let's pivot,Talk SEO.
Yes, I want to hear some tipsand tricks.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
SEO is.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
We are not going off of this cliff, yeah, but it's a
good view.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
It's basically for companies to place themselves on
Google.
I'm going to say Google becausethat's the elephant in the room
.
Obviously, there are othersearch engines, but when you're
talking about the search engine,when most people are searching
on its Google, so it's trying tolist your company, services,
products as high as possible,preferably on the first page.

(40:04):
Okay, so that when people typein something that you're
offering, your company's goingto come up and people are going
to click on it and hopefullyconvert.
And that is SEO, search engineoptimization.
It's an organic process ofranking.

Speaker 1 (40:23):
So what are some tips or tricks that you can share
and obviously there's a lot moreinvolved than just some tips
and tricks but what can theaverage person do to increase
their business's search engineranking or climb up to the top?

Speaker 2 (40:40):
Well, I think the best thing that I can say is for
somebody that's trying thisthemselves is really just
content.
Focus on good content, thingsthat your audience is going to
want to see, is going to want toread.
Try not to focus too much onthe actual search engines
themselves and don't writespecifically and stuff all these

(41:01):
keywords into content becauseyou think you're going to rank
for that.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
So don't try to gamify the algo.
It'll happen naturally ifyou're just adding content
that's quality.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
If you're adding value to your website through
content, through images, andpeople are interested, the
organic rankings are going tocome.
It's a long-term process.
It doesn't happen overnight.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
Well, isn't it true that Google changes the SEO
requirements from time to time?

Speaker 2 (41:31):
So Google tweaks its algorithm all the time.
Actually, why?

Speaker 1 (41:36):
Is that to screw with people or just upgrade on their
end?

Speaker 2 (41:40):
No, I mean listen, they're in the business to serve
proper content to their users.
That's really what they want todo.
Their primary goal is that theywant the experience to match
the user's expectations.
So when you type something in,the first thing that you want to
see are things that arerelevant to your search, and
obviously there's a lot ofthings that come into play, like

(42:01):
what keywords you're using,possibly what cookies you have
stored on your browser, likewhat you've actually visited
before, but assuming that you'researching for something
completely new and you've neversearched for it before, google
obviously wants to serve up thebest possible experience to its
users, so therefore they'regoing to keep changing the
algorithm to match that, and theagenda is changing all the time

(42:25):
.
The internet keeps growing.
There's new websites, there'snew content.
Some sites don't perform aswell anymore.
Some new sites perform better.
It's a constant process, and Ialways tell people that are
interested in SEO marketing thatyou're going to get into this

(42:45):
for the long term.
If you cannot build it intoyour budget and you are the type
of company that wants instantgratification, then don't do
this, because it's going to,number one, be a waste of money
for you, because you're probablygoing to give up in like a
couple of months or three orsomething like that or more.
You know you got to give ittime.
Some of my SEO clients are withus for years and sometimes

(43:08):
they're with us through the upsand downs All right.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
So SEO is really a long term strategy where you're
constantly playing whack-a-mole.
Well, if you're I don't knowI'll pick out an IT company and
you want to be one, two andthree in the search?
Well, how many thousands ofother IT companies that may or
may not be able to outspend?
You are there.
So, while you did get to, let'ssay, number one in the Google

(43:34):
search, you know, maybe two,three weeks later you fell.
Yeah, If you didn't stay on topof it, yeah, and that does
happen.
So let's discuss more aboutwhat you do to help your clients
and then we'll take anotherpivot.
We'll go into some businesschallenges and some personal
challenges along the way.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
So our biggest value add for our clients is to
understand what their painpoints are and meet them head on
.
And you know that process hasbeen developed over the years
where, initially, our onlyobjective was just to launch a
website.
It didn't have much strategy.
We didn't really need tounderstand, like, what their

(44:15):
pain points are.
Why are they building a site?
What is the point?
We just wanted to get theaccount, get paid for it and
move on to the next site andkind of like, develop, almost
like a mini factory kind ofmodel.
We're not looking to do thatright now.
We're looking to establishrelationships with all of our
clients.
We want longevity, we want towork with them, not interested
in just launching a project andwalking away.

(44:36):
So before we even do a projectwith a client, we have a whole
process where we learn whattheir pain points are Like.
Why are you doing this?
If it's a website that you'relooking to build for your
company, what is the point?
Is it because you just want tolook better online?
Because you hate the way itlooks?
Right now and I do get a lot ofthat my salespeople are, you
know.

(44:56):
They say my salespeople areembarrassed.
We don't even want to show ourwebsite anymore.
That's crazy.
Okay, yeah, it happens becauseit is the number one tool for
people to vet out your company.
Yeah, so if your site lookslike shit, that is going to be
the first impression that yourprospective customer is going to

(45:17):
have in any business.

Speaker 1 (45:19):
That's your first and last.
And so, for example, you metwith your client, you sold them.
They're now doing their duediligence.
It's a week or two later, whenthey're looking at your
paperwork again, they go to yourwebsite.
They forgot everything that yousaid because you're not in
front of them anymore.
So the website is to refreshtheir mind.
That's the last chance to sellto that client and close the
deal Right.
So it's worth it.

(45:40):
A website is your storefront,it's your awning, it's an
investment in your company andif your salespeople, if anybody
in your company, is embarrassedby your website, you absolutely
need to change that, you need toamend that.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
I'm at the point right now in business, in the
maturity of the company, thatI'm not looking to convince
anyone of whether they need adigital presence and how good it
is.
I actually don't do that at all.
I refuse to do that.
I refuse to pitch somebody thereason why you need one.
I used to, but there's noreason for that anymore.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
Why is that?

Speaker 2 (46:15):
Well, because I want to work with companies that
already understand that theyneed a better digital presence
and that they have clearlydefined pain points and they're
in the process of looking for anagency that they can match with
really well and meet thoserequirements and fix those pain
points.
When I start talking to theseclients early on and it's

(46:35):
usually me I still like to do it.
I'm still like the one that'sgoing to vet out the business
initially.
It's not just me, but I'm soheavily involved in that.
I just love that process and Iwant to, early on, have a
relationship with a lot of thesenew clients that we onboard.
So when they contact me, Idon't have a conversation.
It's never really about like,all right, well, tell me why I

(46:56):
need a website.
That's not.
I can't.
I'll lose track of theconversation and I'm not going
to entertain that.
I'm going to work with and talkto people that marketing
directors, it managers.
They already know why they needa website.
They're not sold on why theyneed one or why they need a
better one or what's wrong withtheirs.
They just now have clearlydefined pain points, like the

(47:19):
website loads too slow or itjust looks really dated and our
salespeople are embarrassed ofit or it doesn't convert very
well.
Conversations like that aremore meaningful because I can
understand, like where they'recoming from, what their pain
points are and I can offer themreal solutions.
And not only can I offer themreal solutions, I could show
them what we've done for otherclients, because we've been

(47:41):
doing this for so long.
We have clients in every mostevery industry and vertical.
I have case studies.
I could prove the work and whenit usually always comes down to
like, all right, well, are wegoing to pick Max first or are
we going to pick these othercouple of agencies you know to
work with?

Speaker 1 (47:58):
So let's talk about some business lessons.
You've had a business for howlong?

Speaker 2 (48:03):
I've been in.
I've been trying to do businessfor over 20 years now, but I
would say that I've had a realgrowing business, probably for
the past I would say 10 plusyears.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
What are some of those major lessons you've
learned along the way?

Speaker 2 (48:19):
Well, I mean, there's been a lot of lessons.
It's you know, to definitelymanage your time as effectively
as possible.
Develop a process I'm very bigon that.
Every business needs to have aprocess.
Any business a purely definedprocess that you can pass to

(48:42):
your staff and then they canexecute on that process and
revise it along the way as thecompany grows.
It's extremely important tohave that and as an owner, you
really can't do everything.
You have to kind of get intothe mindset that you can't be a
micromanager.
You really have to startentrusting your core team

(49:04):
Delegate, delegate.
Let them take over essentialprocesses, let them tell you
what needs to get done, listento it If you disagree, and
obviously you will, along theway, understand why it should be
done this way and guide italong as the process.
But really trust your team tokind of drive your business and

(49:25):
try to step away and focus onthe bigger picture, because you
will never grow if you don't.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
That's right.
What was the worst mistake youever made while running your
business?

Speaker 2 (49:33):
It's a tough question .
I don't know if there's anyhuge mistake that I've made,
because every mistake that Iguess you could call that
mistake that I made, I learnedfrom it, I grew from it and I
adapted it to you know, to whereI am today and where I'll be

(49:54):
going.
I can't attribute any hugemistake that I made in business.
I mean sure, everyone can say Ialways spend money here and
correctly, or I allocatedresources incorrectly or I
pissed off a client or I didn'tland a big account.
But that's not our story,that's just your typical
business journey.
So I learned from all of those.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
We heard from another guest on the former episode
that if you didn't land thataccount, well, it was never your
sale in the first place.
Well, right, so don't beatyourself up about it.

Speaker 2 (50:25):
Yeah, but that's true .
But also I, you know I have todiffer a little bit because,
looking back at it, I alwaysreflected why we didn't get a
certain account or what couldhave we done differently.
And just to say to yourselflike, oh well, you weren't gonna
get it anyway isn't really likea good thing.
So I could honestly go back toevery single example of a

(50:49):
business that we didn't land andit's because I could
confidently say, it's because wedidn't do XYZ.

Speaker 1 (50:55):
Okay, and we should have.
Do you follow up with thosesame accounts later?

Speaker 2 (50:59):
on?
Yeah, we do, did you?

Speaker 1 (51:00):
ever win any of them.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
Some of them we actually have because we've kept
in touch and some of themactually will come back.
I mean, listen, it doesn'thappen often, but some of them
will come back and say, oh youknow, we should have went with
you guys in the first place, butwe chose this other agency
because they did these thingsdifferently in the process
initially and that's what soldus but, you know, turned out to
be a really bad project.

(51:23):
We didn't get what we wanted,or halfway they laughed us,
whatever the reason is.
And then you know, we step inand hopefully we're able to help
Some.
We just contact years laterwhen the project or whatever
they've done is live and they'rejust looking to change agencies
.
A lot of times, businesses justwant to change an agency

(51:44):
because it's not because theagency that they're with is
messing up, it's just becausethey want to see if anyone has a
different direction or adifferent, you know, way of
doing things.
It's normal for agencies toconstantly be changed around.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
Yeah, I agree, if you know you're working with an
agency or a vendor and they'renot providing you with new great
ideas or learning lessons thatthey would like to implement on
your side, then you know thatstill, relationship should
probably be, or at leastconsidered to be, changed.
You always want to work withvendors that are going to bring
the best to you.
Yes, and I can see how arelationship over time just gets

(52:22):
taken advantage of.
Yeah, not in a mean way or anevil way, right, but just in a
assumptive way.
We assume we will always havethis big account, forever.

Speaker 2 (52:34):
It's like it's like you overstayed your welcome.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
Yeah, you overstayed your welcome.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
You know you get comfortable and it's not that
you're not doing the right thingfor the customer, but you're
just not as hungry as you werewhen you first signed them up.
That's right and it's justnormal.
It's just the way it is and youknow they look for a change.
So I was a life cycle.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
When we had our bigger company.
I have always enjoyed workingwith smaller vendors because
they are hungry.
They have that hunger toimpress and they're willing to
work and put in all of thoseextra hours and efforts versus
falling back on their sheer sizeand reputation.
All right, so back to thepersonal front.

(53:14):
What are some challenges youface in your personal life that
you've learned from Well?

Speaker 2 (53:21):
I have two kids.
I have a boy and a girl and I'mmarried.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Well, there you go.
End of episode.
That was the biggest challengeyou could have?

Speaker 2 (53:32):
Obviously it's not, but the biggest challenge is
right now my life is justraising my children.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
Being a parent is the hardest job you could have.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
That is one of the biggest personal challenges.
It's obviously being stayingmarried and kind of growing in
the marriage, understanding eachother.
It's very important.
Luckily, my wife and I have alot of love for each other and
we were very understanding andwe have a good relationship and
now we're raising our twochildren.

(54:05):
So I think that is the biggestchallenge right now, at least
for me in our lives, and I treatit as it's like it's funny.
I don't know if that's gonnaresonate, but it's like the kids
are almost like many companiesAt least that's the way I look
at it.
You invest in them.

(54:25):
I don't want to take the humanelement away from it, obviously,
but they're like littlecompanies.
They're important to you,you're investing into them,
you're spending a lot of timeinto them and they're like are
they paying dividends?

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Not yet, it's a little cookie jar where every
time they they have a tidbit,they drop a quarter into it.

Speaker 2 (54:47):
Not yet.
Maybe later on we'll see.
Right now, the dividends arejust in the joy of seeing them
grow.
That's right.
So I try to spend a lot of timewith the both of them and I try
to have a relationship aseparate relationship with each
one of my kids, because I thinkthat's important.
I see a lot of parents theyhave a relationship only when

(55:10):
they're like around their kidstogether or when their wife is
around.
So it's always like arelationship is like within the
family, which is obviouslyimportant.
But I try to have a separaterelationship with each one of my
kids so I really get to knowthem.
That's important.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
They build a separate bond.
Now for me I have a bigchallenge with that because I
have twins.
So I want to go do one thing,the other one wants to follow or
be part of it.
Luckily my twins, theirpersonalities, have taken a fork
in the road.
One's into cheer and everythingpink and cliche from the girly
girly sense and the other one isinto baseball and the cross and

(55:49):
roll block.
So I do have those easy momentswhere I could divide and spend
individual time.
I spent the whole summer withthe baby, so she's had a lot of
time.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
She's hanging in their own ways.
It's very important and I knowyour kids really well and our
kids are friends and they getalong really well, so it's
important.
Another real challengepersonally is with my son.
He has type 1 diabetes.
He's had it pretty much all hislife.
It's still something that westill struggle with, even now.

(56:24):
He's 11 and he was diagnosedwhen he was only 15 months, so
he was a baby.
Wasn't he the youngest case?
He actually was the youngestcase that the hospital that we
were at has ever seen.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
Not a record you really want to hold?

Speaker 2 (56:43):
No, I mean, I'm sure there's obviously younger, but
Dave personally had.
He was a baby, so it was reallydifficult for my wife and I to
deal with that.
How do you deal with?

Speaker 1 (56:55):
it.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
We're used to it right now, so it's definitely
easier for us, but there'sdifferent challenges now.
He's older, so he's dealingwith it himself also and for the
most part it's.
It's not something that anyonereally sees or knows about he
could do everything but it'ssomething that we're constantly

(57:17):
on our mind, like his sugarlevels, what he's eating, you
know, and so these are really.
This is just something that'svery important and for anyone
that knows this condition type 1diabetes it's challenging.
It's challenging.
It's a major lifestylemodification.
I'll call it like a major.
You have to really be in tunewith it.

(57:40):
All the time when he was a babyand he didn't understand
anything and he didn't eat rightand he's just, you know, like
all babies, but yet his pancreaswasn't working, his sugar was
still dropping.
Yeah, my wife and I had a lotof.
We had a lot of really manicepisodes with this, really tough

(58:00):
nights.
Really tough nights that reallychallenged us in a lot of ways
in the marriage too.
But you know, we both alwayssay that two people were gonna
get this type of a situation.
Might as well be us, becausewe're tough and you know we're
able to cope with it.
I mean, even last night wastough.
He had a really big low around11 o'clock when I wanted to go

(58:27):
to sleep earlier for this hike.
He was dropped really low andwe had to rush to his room and
give him juice and because he'sstill a kid, he still he can't
police it on his own.
He's still a kid and he justdoesn't feel it sometimes.
And then he felt it because hewas really low.
So we dealt with it, we satthere with him.
Yeah, it's a.
So that's that's a hugechallenge.

(58:48):
That's a huge challenge, butbut it's something that we're
dealing with pretty well.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
What advice would you have to a new parent that just
found out their child has type 1diabetes?

Speaker 2 (59:01):
So you got to give a time.
Time is everything Seems to bea recurring thing with you.
In the beginning, we werepanicked.
We were panicked.
We had no idea how to deal withthis.
It seemed like the world wasgonna be over.
We were not gonna.
We were not gonna cope withthis.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
Yeah, I do remember you when you called me and I
think my advice to you was okay,so deal with it.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
Yeah, I know and I figured out.
What choice do you have?
This is your kid.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
You deal with it, this was your card.
Yeah, yeah, it's a roadblocksometimes but you know, at the
end of the day, calm, cool andcollected, make good decisions.
Okay, they'll live a great lifewith it.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
You know we have, thankfully, a really good family
support system with my parentsand my wife's parents.
Everybody's involved, everybodytries to help out and look, we
dealt with it.
But we understand fully how howparent that has that hears this
news feels at first it's likeit's not punch, it's difficult

(01:00:03):
to cope with.
Yeah, it is in the beginning.
Well, any big news.

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
It's, it's a gut punch.
It's, you know, this perfectimagination or this thought that
I had of this perfect world,right, the house with the white
picket fence and the happy,healthy kids yeah, that I could
see how that comes full circleand straighten your face.

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
See that actually in the beginning was a big
distraction for me in business,and that's where my what, where
my partner Donnie really justshined and helped me and was
there and never questioned howmuch time I'm not in the office
or like where, what I'm doing,where I am.
I mean, it was just kind oflike understood that I have this

(01:00:45):
major life event that I have todeal with and there's nothing I
could do about it.
I still care about the business.
I'm gonna be back, but I justcan't be back now and I love him
for that.
I'll never you know, I'll neverforget that Great partnership.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
Yeah, so partners get your back.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
So, and you would do the same for him.
I would, yeah, I would do thesame for him absolutely, and we
were not even in the positionthat we are now.
This was earlier on and he hadto do a lot of the work himself
and we didn't have a team likewe have now.
So you know it was.

(01:01:24):
We didn't have 50 plus people,we had three.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
So here's the crazy thing that made him stronger as
well, because there's no bettertest to your skills and your
ability to stay emotionallystrong than when you are on your
own as a business partner,knowing that you're helping your
business partner out for goodreason.
But that definitely helped himdevelop his skills as well.

Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
It also actually motivated me in a different way,
like when I snapped out of itand I did get, finally get back
into into into the company.
It made me stronger because,like I want it to be more
successful, I wanted to grow thecompany I wanted to to new
purpose.
Well, yeah, I want to care myson the right way.
He's gonna require more things.

(01:02:10):
Yeah, it motivated me.
It was definitely a motivatinglike once I was able to kind of
say like, all right, I'm gonnaget my head back in this like we
got this, we could do, we coulddo this.
My wife is involved in this.
Well, I would say that was a.
That was a growth mode.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
Yeah, hey, listener, thanks for hiking along with us,
discover more episodes at.
I took a hikecom or torecommend an adventurous guest,
apply to bea sponsor, or tosimply drop us a line.
So let's let's discuss what ispotentially a bubble, like
everything else that is so hyped, all of a sudden, overnight, it

(01:02:46):
tends to crash and burn.
So is AI a threat, a successfactor for the future human
achievement, or will it burstlike a bubble, crash like a
rocket and burn?

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
So, yeah, everybody has a lot of opinions about it
and I've think about it a lotand I use a lot of AI in my
business today, although I thinkit's very primitive when you,
when you're talking about whatAI actually could be.
You know, everyone knows thatis artificial intelligence, but
you know, right now I think it'sjust more tools that people

(01:03:20):
could use to just kind ofenhance tasks, resources and
yeah.
So, and that's really whereit's at right now and obviously
it's getting much more advanced.
I recently had a wholeconversation with my brother
about it when I visited him, andI talk about this with a lot of
you know, to a lot of people.
Do I see it as a threat?

(01:03:42):
It can be, absolutely it can be, but it really just depends on
where it is actually going to goand how much we pay attention
to it.
Okay, so just right, talkingabout in terms of right now.
You have to, you cannot, youcannot sleep on it.
Anybody that's in business hasto pay attention to what's going

(01:04:04):
on with these AI tools and howto leverage them for their own
businesses.
It's extremely importantbecause you will fall behind
very quickly if you don'tleverage some of your AI tools
in your everyday process, someof the things that I do with AI
for my business.
Obviously it's content because,like everybody just knows,

(01:04:26):
right now most people know me,even my dad knows chat GPT.
Yeah, chat GPT is the mostprolifant right now.
Okay, but that is not reallywhat AI actually is or it's
going.
But chat GPT is superimpressive and you should be
leveraging it on a lot of levelsfor your business.
But I also generate a lot ofimages AI based images, okay and

(01:04:50):
there's other certain toolsthat we've been able to
incorporate into our process of,you know, agency-based process
that's using AI tools we used tooffer with whatever services
we're doing, bundled with acontent writer, our customers,
our clients, would pay for andwork, you know, work with this
person.
I mean really no more.
It's it's, it's all.

(01:05:10):
It's really a lot of this AIgenerated content that is being
tweaked.

Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
Now here's the thing if you are using AI, it's very
detectable.
People can tell.
Still I can tell if somebodyput a post up and it was purely
100% copying.
Absolutely yes, I can tell but,it'll make it your own, but
this is no different to me thandoing research or hiring
somebody to write that piece foryou.
I know many people some of thebiggest influencers out there

(01:05:39):
that you'll see on LinkedIn.
They don't write their content.
They're not using AI.
They have a copywriter.
The copywriter is writing itfor them and they're posting it.
That's that.
So I'm a big fan of using toolsand resources.
I don't like the cheatingaspect of just using those tools
and resources.
Put your own work into it, butI do see a huge threat.

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
You know the computer at one point was also seen as a
tool that could potentiallylook that as cheating.

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
So as the calculator?
You and I are old enough toremember when, going to school,
you were told you can't use acalculator on a test.
Yes, which?

Speaker 2 (01:06:18):
is today.
That's absurd, absurd, yeah,absurd.
So, look, this is going to beno different, and it's a
technology that's growing sofast that nobody could really
kind of ignore it at this point,and I don't think there's any
way to bottle it up.
Maybe there'll be someregulation, some legislation
around the regulation, like howpeople are going to legally

(01:06:40):
utilize it, and there should beon some capacity of how this
technology grows.
But again, where we're going toreally see it disrupt a lot of
people's jobs is definitely like, for example, drivers, people
that are working behind thecounter, such as Starbucks, or a

(01:07:02):
fast food place, sandwiches,things like places like that.
The companies are alreadyputting up stores that are
automating.
I mean, starbucks I just readan article has just had a, I
think, a new store come upthat's fully automated.
I don't even think there's asingle person that works there.
Maybe there's somebody like inthe back somewhere, yeah, but

(01:07:25):
there's nobody there at all.
It's a fully automateddrive-thru driven by AI and
understands multiple languages.
It's just much more efficient,doesn't need to take a bathroom
break, doesn't need to take alunch break, doesn't complain
about not feeling well, and it'sjust much more efficient for

(01:07:46):
companies to replace workerswith this type of technology and
it's definitely going to happenvery soon.

Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
So we can see where this is going to cause a very,
very big hole in the economy.

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
Well, I have my theories on that too, and how
that's going to play out.

Speaker 1 (01:08:03):
Well, you can't tell me?
And listen, I can argue bothsides.
I've pride myself, or pridedmyself, on being able to see
both sides in any argument, nomatter how extreme it is.
Right, because your argument,your opinion, is your opinion
and I want to know why.
Okay, I could see the pros andcons for a fully automated we'll

(01:08:26):
call it retail experience.
Right, for all the reasons youjust mentioned.
Okay, but I could also see theantithesis, the argument against
it, for how the worker thatwould typically be employed by
Starbucks will no longer have aplace to have that entry level

(01:08:47):
position up to the ladder ofmanagement or even at the
corporate level.
That springboard has been takenaway or will be taken away, so
they have to go somewhere.
Right, and I don't know if weare in an economy that is
creating those style jobs afterthe robots take over.

Speaker 2 (01:09:07):
I feel like humanity is trending in a way where
people just don't want to dothese jobs anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
And where are they going to go?

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
Well, when I was 16, 15, whatever that was, and I was
working in Jones Beach Flip andBurgers, I utterly hated it.
I hated everything.
There was nothing good about itOther than the fact that I was
getting a paycheck.
I was doing it for money,obviously.

Speaker 1 (01:09:34):
You were learning how to be a productive employee.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
Was I though.

Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
Yeah, you were Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
I mean, I had a little Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
That was experience for you doing something you
didn't want to do, but you stillhad to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
I had to do it because that happens a lot in
life.
I had to do it because I justneeded a little bit of money.

Speaker 1 (01:09:47):
But as a kid you learned lessons that sometimes
you show up for work and have todo a whole bunch of stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:09:52):
You don't want to do, fine, okay, that is a valuable
lesson.
But the same argument of mathas we become more advanced,
right?

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
Why do kids complain about?
Am I really going to usecalculus?
No, you're not, but it'sexpanding your learning process
and your aptitude.

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
Look as society advances and it's just a natural
progression that people willnot be doing these types of jobs
.
It's not even an argument, it'shappening, yeah.
So how are they going to bepaid?
Well, there's I'm sure you'veheard of something called UBI
Universal Basic Income.
I'm not 100% on board with it,but I don't see any way around

(01:10:32):
it either, because when thesecompanies basically integrate
these processes and AI andmachines and replace these
employees, what are they goingto do with them?
How are they going to get paid?
So I think that there's goingto be some type of a
mathematical formula thatgovernments will put into

(01:10:55):
process and these companies aregoing to have to pay.
Like, all right, you have thisarm that flips this burger.
Okay, well, that equals X.
This is the equation for thatmachine and that process.
You have these two things,that's so.
Basically, it's almost like allright.
Well, this used to be a payroll, this is now your new payroll.
I think businesses will be.

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
So you're saying that you think that UBI will be
enforced by regulatory, and weall know that when the
government steps in and createsregulatory, it goes flawlessly.
No one steals from that cookiejar.
It's going to be a massiveslush fund, exactly so that
money is going to go somewhereand it's not going to be spent
in the right mode.
So let's yeah, this isbeautiful.
I definitely think we need totake a picture here in a second.

(01:11:35):
So let's say, though, that UBIcomes in Starbucks.
You used to have 5,000 stores.
You now have 10,000 stores.
You used to have five employeesin each store.
You are now down to noemployees.
That's 50,000 that you're notpaying on payroll.

(01:11:57):
So UBI rules will now say thatyou have to contribute I don't
know $10 million per year to UBI.
Great, that money is going togo where Low income housing,
supporting people of needPoliticians will have.
Exactly it's going to bemisappropriated if it
exacerbates the issue.

Speaker 2 (01:12:15):
There will be no world where these companies will
basically replace their payrolland not have to have any
responsibility when it comes topaying something.
Maybe, yes, maybe no, I don'tsee it, because people are going
to have to somehow get somekind.
There's going to have to besome type of a living situation,
like they're going to have toget paid so if you can't drive
anymore.
I mean, think about how.
What percentage of thepopulation does these types of

(01:12:37):
jobs?
It's huge.
So what are you going to do inthis situation?
Like they have to get some typeof an income stream so
companies will replace.
If they're going to let theseemployees go because they've
automated their jobs, whichthey're going to, they're going
to.
It's not even.
It's not an if, it's not even.
It's like when this is going tohappen.

Speaker 1 (01:12:57):
Yeah, this is a when.

Speaker 2 (01:12:58):
So they're going to have to pay for this.

Speaker 1 (01:13:01):
They're going to have to pay for this process, your
bet is as good as mine, thiswill be a completely
misappropriated contribution.
Like everything else, historyconstantly repeats itself and
what I envision is, in this case, we're going to have a whole
bunch of teenagers that shouldhave had jobs that will not, and

(01:13:23):
we're going to create ageneration of very irresponsible
, ill-equipped future adults.
We'll see.
It was important for me to havea job.
Now I might be an outlier.
I had my first job at nine.
All right, I've worked manydifferent retail positions.
Atapizaria probably shouldn'teven been allowed to be hired

(01:13:44):
Definitely should not have beenallowed to, but I did that.
That taught me what it was liketo be a worker Right, I babysat
.
I worked at camps as acounselor.
I worked at sporting facilities.
I've done almost everything.
A place called Pergamon, likeHome Depot.
That taught me what it's liketo not want to stock a shelf or
face a shelf ever again, butthose are important skills.

(01:14:05):
I want those for my kids.
Now, if those jobs are notavailable in the future because
AI has displaced the need, we'regoing to do a good disservice
for our youth.

Speaker 2 (01:14:15):
I know, but I don't think so, but hey, we'll have a
fund for it, there's no stoppingit.

Speaker 1 (01:14:18):
We'll have a completely appropriated fund
that's even a word and it willbe spent wisely.
There'll be no corruption andStarbucks will be sure to
contribute to that.
Just trust the geniuses.
Trust the geniuses.

Speaker 2 (01:14:33):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:14:34):
You know it's.
Unfortunately, I think we knowhow this is going to play out.
It's going to be a source ofcontinued frustration, because
history continuously repeatsitself.

Speaker 2 (01:14:42):
But there's no way you're going to stop companies
from optimizing their processbetter.

Speaker 1 (01:14:48):
And as they should and they will.
As a business advocate, I thinkthey should be going in this
direction, but what I'm sayingis I'm arguing both sides here.
Business advocate, it's theevolution of business works
smarter, not harder, but there'sgoing to be the check and
balance which is going to becorrupted, and that's
unfortunate.
And once government steps in,there's certain things they

(01:15:09):
should do and we should do thatwe won't do so.
Let me give you it on thesurface.
For instance, whenever, if I dohave chat, GPT or Grammarly,
help me and it's in an excess,not just comma placement or a
quick edit I put on my posts.
This post was written by me,edited by Grammarly or post

(01:15:31):
created by.

Speaker 2 (01:15:32):
I didn't notice that actually.
Yeah, I put that.

Speaker 1 (01:15:34):
Why?
Because I was taught when I wasa kid.
When you go to the library andyou cite something, you create a
bibliography and you givecredit to the site and source,
but I don't see how chat GPT isany different.
Right, I think I'm the only onesaying written by me, edited by
Grammarly, or written by me,orchestrated by chat GPT.

Speaker 2 (01:15:56):
So are you aware that there is an art form?
There's a skill to what kind ofoutput you get from these AI
tools.
There's a way to do it, so somepeople are really good at it,
so they're called promptwhispers.
I don't know if you've everheard of it no.
Yeah, so there's actualcompanies hire.
If you Google salaries for aprompt whisper, yeah, there's

(01:16:16):
companies that are hiring promptwhispers they're called that
understand how to put certaininformation into tools like chat
, gpt or mid-journey or whatevertools that they use.
Okay, and what happens is theyget back better results.
So like, yeah, you could bereally like just generic and go
into chat GPT and say write mean article about the best 10

(01:16:40):
tips on how to hike.
Yeah, sure, you could do thatand you'll get something.
Or you can go in into chat GPTand say write me a 1500 word
article on the best ways, thetechniques on how to hike.
And you know you just shakeSpearian type of a type of tone.
Yeah, you know, and keep itlighthearted.

Speaker 1 (01:17:02):
More precise than that.

Speaker 2 (01:17:03):
Well, you know you can get.
You can get really kind of intoit and you're going to get a
completely different result thatcomes out of it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:09):
Yeah, and some people very good at it so yeah, so
it's more like anything else.
It's trial and error, it'spractice, just like we have have
journalists that areexceptionally great at writing
stories, right.
You have people that have nowtaken those same journalism
skills and put it into a chatmodel, right?
So what other aspects of AIshould we be focusing on to

(01:17:31):
leverage our own growth in ourown business?
So, obviously probably not thebest idea for it to create an
entire blog post for you everysingle day, because that's
pretty transparent, but maybegive you some ideas on blog
posting.

Speaker 2 (01:17:44):
We just we just scratched the surface.
There's so much you could dowith it.
I mean, you could have it.
You could have it.
You could basically have it, goin and analyze an entire
complicated spreadsheet for youof financials or inventory and
make sense of it and output thatinto another type of a system
or application that you need forwhatever needs you have.

(01:18:07):
Yeah, so there's so many toolsavailable that you could use to
just help automate things inyour day to day business.

Speaker 1 (01:18:18):
Yeah.
So for my own edification andreally experience, I ended up
going into ChatGPT and I had hitcreate a P&L for a tech company
with eight and a half millionin annualized revenue at a 35%
margin, just to see what itwould spit out.

(01:18:39):
And the scary part, it spit outa dangerously accurate P&L.
Yeah, yeah, I've seen thosethat is just ready for
fraudulent misuse and I'm sureand that is scary as well,
because the banking system andthe insurance systems are not

(01:18:59):
going to catch up quick enoughand there are going to be a lot
of fraudsters out there thatwill present these fantastic
documents, these reports, withina matter of seconds that are
dangerously accurate, and theywill certainly be conning the
banks and lending institutions.

Speaker 2 (01:19:18):
I'm sure it's being done now.
It's not just documents, butall these deep fakes that are
there.
I'm sure you hear in the newsall the time.
It's capable of doing video andpeople professionals, pros have
a really tough time.
Different what's the real,what's not?

Speaker 1 (01:19:36):
So then, I guess, in an existential view, what's our
point anymore?
What's the purpose?
The robots are winning.

Speaker 2 (01:19:43):
Well, maybe that is our story and our the evolution,
but they're not winning today.
So we'll see what we'll seewhat comes out of this.
But look, we know thetechnology only advances and
this is going to be.
This is.
This is right.
We're living right now in thebeginning of definitely a

(01:20:03):
revolution as big as, I guessyou could say, as the industrial
revolution was at the time.

Speaker 1 (01:20:09):
Wow, yeah, that is a bold statement.

Speaker 2 (01:20:12):
Yeah, it is definitely the beginning.

Speaker 1 (01:20:15):
So the AI generation, this revolution of AI, is on
par with the growth anddevelopment that was
institutionalized from theindustrial revolution.

Speaker 2 (01:20:29):
Wow, I believe that this is going to be I mean, it's
already somewhat, you know,game changing, but it will be
heavily ingrained and felt ineverybody's lives in the next
five to 10 years.

Speaker 1 (01:20:44):
I can certainly tell you.
You know it does give you a lotof shortcuts.
You know that are necessary ina small business.
You know we've seen a lot ofother shortcuts the ability to
work remotely.
You know, when I started mytelecom business I had to have a
Manhattan office address with aManhattan phone number, a two,
one, two number.
That was a must.
No one would ever do businesswith me in New York City.

(01:21:05):
I felt the same way.
I had a two, one, two.
Guess what?
No one cares.

Speaker 2 (01:21:08):
No one cares, so I don't even need a phone.

Speaker 1 (01:21:11):
I still have it and I don't even know why I don't
even need a phone anymore.
I can start a business nowanywhere.
I don't even need to be in NewYork City, because no one cares
about the address anymore.
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:21:21):
I don't think people are impressed with that as much
as they used to.

Speaker 1 (01:21:24):
And, by the way, I'm over generalizing right now.
But depending on your business,you don't even need an office,
so now you can circumventmultiple employees that you
don't need to hire anymorebecause of AI yeah Right,
Granted, I chose the tried andtrue route editing a podcast.
I didn't want to learn theseskills because I don't need to

(01:21:46):
learn 10,000, you know or put10,000 hours into learning
something where someone else isan expert.
So I have an editor, but Icould most likely use AI to edit
this podcast episode.
It might not be in fact, itwon't be as good because I don't
think it's there yet but it'spotentially possible and that,

(01:22:08):
to me, is crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:22:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:22:11):
But it's evolution.

Speaker 2 (01:22:13):
Yeah, so that's the beginning.
Once we start to see thingsthat are legitimately thinking
for themselves and learning andadapting on their own and we're
interacting with them on our dayto day lives, it's a game
changing talk, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:22:29):
Absolutely Okay.
Yeah, almost slipped.
We're nearing the final stretchhere.
So, drew, do you believe youare successful?

Speaker 2 (01:22:41):
That's a tough one In some ways, yes, in some ways,
no.
I'm going to be brutally honestwith this one.
I don't know.
It's hard to measure success.
Everyone measures itdifferently.

Speaker 1 (01:22:53):
What is your definition of success?

Speaker 2 (01:22:54):
Look, I'm not ashamed to say that I'm a capitalist at
heart.
I feel like a byproduct ofsuccess is definitely financial
freedom and making money, and Ithink that that's a good thing.
Especially if you're anentrepreneur and you're in
business, your goal should bedriven by money, because that
produces a lot of positivethings.

(01:23:17):
You hire people, you're able topay them.
It's very noble.
It's one of the most noblethings an entrepreneur can do is
give somebody an opportunity, ajob, livelihood.
It's very frequently overlooked, I think, as one of the major
things that is a success factorin developing a company.

Speaker 1 (01:23:35):
You're going down the path of defining success for a
company, and I will absolutely,wholeheartedly agree with you
that success in a company isrevenue and profit.

Speaker 2 (01:23:45):
So for me it's financial freedom.
It's also giving me more timeto be with my family and just
doing podcasts and walkingaround and hiking and I have to
worry about the business andright now I feel like I have
some of that, but I'm still veryinto it.

(01:24:08):
I'm still there, so I'm stillvery involved and that's okay,
that's fine.
But for me, that success wouldbe to truly just walk away and
still have financial freedom andjust do whatever you want to do
.

Speaker 1 (01:24:25):
Okay, well, I cannot argue with your definition of
success.
I would say I consider yousuccessful.
You're a great father, greatparent in that sense, great
husband.
You've run a business for 20years, successfully weathered
the storms, the ups, the downs,the lefts, the rights, hired

(01:24:46):
people, transitioned, grew yourbusiness.
Great partner in the businessRight.

Speaker 2 (01:24:52):
I would say for the most part from what I see,
you're healthy.

Speaker 1 (01:24:56):
You've got that family support.
I would call that success.
Now, whether or not financialfreedom is ever something we can
achieve, I don't know.
I guess we're all stillsearching for that piece, but
that seems to be the piece thatwe're always going to be chasing
, especially in American society.
So, andrew Ruditzer, I willthank you for hiking along with

(01:25:18):
me today.
Thank you, darren, it's been anamazing experience.
Thank you, I really appreciateit.
And thank you for a greatfriendship, a very long,
lifelong, long-lastingfriendship, which is something
I'm very proud of, and AndrewRuditzer.
While most people went to worktoday, we went to hustle.
Yes, we did.

(01:25:38):
Next time on, I Took a Hike.
Brace yourself for a shockingtwist, as John Firth, a skilled
business advisor and CEO coach,unveils a secret that he's
grappled with for years, arevelation that left me as
stunned as you'll be.
Till next time.
I'm Darren Mas.
Thanks for listening.

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Andrew Ruditser - They "SEO" me Rollin'

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