From Concrete to Clicks: Data-Driven Growth with Build Grow Scale's Matthew Stafford

Growth doesn’t come from another hack; it comes from doing the right work in the right order. We sit down with Matthew Stafford of Build Grow Scale to explore the deceptively simple idea that changes everything: information is everywhere, but focus is scarce. Matthew takes us from his 23-year run in commercial concrete to a breakout Teespring campaign and into the data-driven system that helped brands in supplements, apparel, kitchen goods, and digital products add millions in revenue by fixing what actually blocks conversions.

We pull apart why most sites convert only 2–3% of visitors, how adding just two or three more buyers per hundred can double revenue without touching ad spend, and why the “laptop lifestyle” sells a lie: the best companies don’t hide behind email blasts—they talk to customers, publish helpful content, and keep a phone number visible. You’ll hear a practical framework for matching your messaging to real buying stages (unaware, problem aware, solution aware), the often-ignored 90-day window where 80% of buyers convert, and the small set of metrics that matter when you’re moving from $10K to $100K per month.

AI shows up as the great accelerator, not the great replacer—supercharging analysis, pattern-spotting, and testing so lean teams make better calls faster. We cover free resources and low-friction audits (“date before marriage”), why owning your audience beyond social platforms protects your funnel, and the operational difference between scaling physical versus digital products. If you’re choosing a niche, Matthew’s pick may surprise you: pets—where emotion and spend meet, and where thoughtful research beats reinvention every time.

If this helps you think clearer about your funnel, subscribe, share with a friend who’s scaling, and leave a quick review to tell us which optimization you’ll test first.

This podcast is proudly sponsored by USC Annenberg’s Master of Science in Digital Media Management (MSDMM) program. An online master’s designed to prepare practitioners to understand the evolving media landscape, make data-driven and ethical decisions, and build a more equitable future by leading diverse teams with the technical, artistic, analytical, and production skills needed to create engaging content and technologies for the global marketplace. Learn more or apply today at https://dmm.usc.edu.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
We don't have information problem.
We typically have a timeproblem.
There's lots of information andit's free.
We just need to know what towork on.
And so we give most of ourinformation out for free.
But where the real value is, isin knowing what to work on and
what to filter out so that it'snot just a distraction.

SPEAKER_00 (00:21):
Welcome to MediaScape, Insights from
Digital Changemakers, a speakerseries and podcast brought to
you by USC Annenberg's DigitalMedia Management Program.
Join us as we unlock the secretsto success in an increasingly
digital world.

SPEAKER_02 (00:41):
It's always fun to get the opportunity to reconnect
with somebody I've spoken to andsee how their business has gone
and grown since our lastconversation.
Matthew Stafford, thank you forjoining me on Media Escape
today.

SPEAKER_01 (00:54):
Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02 (00:55):
Of course.
What you do is so vitallyinteresting, engaging, and
important to the students inmany divisions at USC.
Particularly, of course, I'mteaching in the digital media
management program, whichsponsors this podcast, and the
digital social media program.
So I'd love for you to do alittle introduction.

(01:15):
Your company is Build GrowScale.
That name I think speaks foritself.
But talk about your specificarea of engagement.

SPEAKER_01 (01:24):
Yeah.
So essentially what we do isevery business that has a
website where people either haveto opt in or they have a
shopping cart, we use data andanalytics to analyze the UX UI.
And that's a bunch of fancywords to say that we want to
help the business owner be moreprofitable.

(01:45):
So get more leads or make moresales.
And the way that we do that isusing data and analytics.
Most people, their websitesconvert around 2 or 3%.
That means for every hundredpeople that come, about two or
three people take action thatthey want them to.
And I always felt like that wasvery broken because I was

(02:08):
selling things myself.
And then when I started lookinginto the data and realizing what
people were doing, that I couldfix that process and get another
two or three people to buy, Idoubled my business with the
same amount of ad spend, whichuh, you know, the longer we get
into digital media and the moreexpensive it is.

(02:32):
So it's it's one of the largestexpenses of running the
business.
And so fixing the website towhere it talks to the customer
in a way that they understandmakes the business work much
better.

SPEAKER_02 (02:45):
Yeah, I mean, that's such an understatement.
You're underselling the amazingthings that you do for your
clients and for your ownbusiness.
But when you realize this foryour own business, what was it
that you then said, oh, I thisis actually useful for everyone
who's having this experience?

SPEAKER_01 (03:03):
Yeah.
So I had a kind of aninteresting introduction to
e-commerce.
And what happened was I used todo commercial concrete for about
23 years.
And I went to a Tony Robbinsevent, and he was selling a
monthly program called MoneyMasters, where they would send
out a DVD and a booklet everymonth highlighting a bunch of

(03:24):
the points from the DVD.
And it was all about people thatwere doing online selling.
And so some of them were aroundmarketing, some of them were
around, they were all aroundmarketing.
I mean, because reallyeverything that we do is
actually marketing, butdifferent aspects of marketing.
And I really at that time I'donly used my computer to do
emails and blueprints and stufflike that for the concrete

(03:46):
business.
I was like, oh wow, this ispretty interesting because I'm
on the road about 200 days ayear traveling and pouring these
big concrete pours.
I could actually do this fromhome and the weather wouldn't
matter, and I wouldn't need 25employees, and I could scale it.
And uh here we are 12 yearslater with, you know, 25
employees, but it's all onlineand remote.

(04:08):
And I just have fallen in lovewith the process of using data
to inform us and being able tomake educated decisions instead
of having to guess on what wethink's happening.

SPEAKER_02 (04:20):
Yeah.
And that piece is is so vitallyimportant.
It's something that I speak tomy students a lot about.
We talk about ad tech andMartech and all of the changes,
especially with AI now and howthat can help your business.
But one thing that I reallyimparted on them actually last
week was talking about your paidmedia is important as is your

(04:42):
earned, shared, and owned.
So once you get somebody to jumpfrom awareness and whatever
action they've taken, that clickfrom the advertising you've
done, how do you get them toactually purchase, to leave
their name and the informationso then they're part of your
database?
And, you know, uh, because Ialways use the example,

(05:03):
everybody was in an uproar whenTikTok went away.
And a lot of people make a lotof money selling things on
TikTok, right?
But they haven't converted thataudience off of a social
platform onto their own, intotheir own ecosystem.

SPEAKER_01 (05:16):
Sure.

SPEAKER_02 (05:16):
Yeah.
So this is something that Ithink a lot of people still have
that disconnect of not reallyknowing what's the secret sauce
that will help me make thosesales.

SPEAKER_01 (05:26):
Yeah, I think you set the tone for the
relationship.
And we call them clients, notcustomers, because you deal with
a client different than you dealwith a customer.
And I think a lot of gurus havedone a poor job of promoting the
laptop lifestyle of that you canhide behind your laptop and not

(05:50):
have to get in touch with yourcustomers.
The most successful businessesthat we deal with and that we
partner with, they are notafraid of their customers.
They have a phone number, theycommunicate with them, they
don't just send emails and textto buy, but they actually
provide value.
And so they create arelationship.

(06:11):
And I think that if you stillcreate a relationship, even if
the person hasn't bought fromyou, that turns into a much
longer lifetime value with thatcustomer or client when you do
that.
And so if you're willing to playthe long game, you're going to
do much better because peopleare in three different buying

(06:33):
cycles.
One, they're unaware, thenthey're problem aware, and then
they're solution aware.
And so until they move throughthat, you might get 10 people to
your website.
Only two of them are even in thebuying cycle of where they're
ready to buy.
The other ones might be unawarethat you even existed, and the

(06:53):
other one might be, oh, I know Ihave a problem, and now I'm
looking for solutions.
And so by staying in touch withthem and following up with them
through the different modalitiesthat are available to us now,
you have like 80% of the peoplethat buy do it after 90 days of
becoming aware.
So if you're only looking forthe people that are going to buy

(07:16):
right now, you literally onlyhave 20% of the buying audience
instead of the 80% that'savailable within the next 90
days.
And most people never follow upwith the people.

SPEAKER_02 (07:29):
That's a huge statement right there.
That's actually several hugestatements right there.
So people who are looking for, Ijust want to do a business
that's going to make me moneyreally quickly, but they're not
pouring their time into gettingto really know that customer and
filling the pipeline.
Yeah.
And being intentional, right?
They're just there for thatquick money.
And that's what we see a lot ofpeople saying when we look at

(07:52):
these online gurus, right?

SPEAKER_01 (07:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And they treat their list thatway too.
They treat it as like, how muchcan I make from it today?
And what happens is a lot ofthose people that need that 90
days to develop the relationshipor to get to the point where
they're ready to buy are burnedout because you've sent them 30

(08:14):
emails that provide no value.
It's just buy my stuff, buy mystuff, buy my stuff.
And eventually they're like, Idon't need to open this email
anymore.

SPEAKER_02 (08:22):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or you they send a whole seriesof emails every day that don't
really that are way too long,that don't really help solve a
problem for us, or that are justtrying to give us a sense of
urgency to buy now.

SPEAKER_01 (08:33):
Yeah.
I hate when I sign up forsomething and by the morning
when I wake up, they've alreadysent me four emails.
Like I literally unsubscribeimmediately.
I'm like, listen, you're makinga business problem my problem by
dumping on me like that insteadof like letting me navigate or
create my own path through yourbusiness.

SPEAKER_02 (08:54):
Yeah.
Let's take a step back and talkabout what it was like to switch
from being on the road 200 daysa year, having to worry about
the weather, having a big team,right?
Going from a home completelydifferent industry into online
sales and marketing.

SPEAKER_01 (09:12):
Yeah.
I actually really enjoyed it.
I love learning new things.
And I had the luxury of therewas a platform that came out
that you could, it was calledTeespring, and you could come up
with designs, and it was reallylike hot market or just catchy
phrases, things like that.
You could get a design made, putit on a t-shirt, run a campaign,

(09:34):
and and test ads to it.
So thankfully I was makingenough in my concrete business
that um I had some disposableincome and I could play around
and you know figure things out.
And my first campaign that didreally well, thankfully, it was
maybe three or four weeks in.
So it didn't take too long forme to figure it out.

(09:54):
But uh, I came up with a catchyphrase.
And when I launched it, it gottons and tons of shares on
Facebook.
And that for that first one thattook off, I'm guessing, I want
to say that it did like morethan 10 grand the first night.
And I thought, oh wow, this isactual real money.
This isn't a few hundred dollarsif I could figure this out.

(10:16):
And I ended up scaling that oneto do over$100,000 in sales,
which meant I probably took homeabout$25,000 in that 10-day
period.
And I was like, okay, this isreal.
These people aren't just likeselling me snake oil.
I'm gonna figure this out.
And over the next three years, Icreated a small group, but we

(10:39):
did about$15 million worth oft-shirt sales.
And I went 100% online, sold myconcrete business, and I've been
online ever since.

SPEAKER_02 (10:48):
Wow.
That's what everybody who wantsto sell online, that's where
they want to get.

SPEAKER_01 (10:53):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (10:53):
Right?

SPEAKER_01 (10:54):
But you Yeah, and it took a lot of work.
I had to do it, you know, I didit at night when on the outside.
So it's not this.
I don't want people to thinklike, oh wow, if I go online,
I'm gonna make, you know, tensof thousands or millions of
dollars.
Like it was hard, and I did itmy first 12 months that I was
trying to do stuff online.
I did SEO and that didn't workand I didn't like it.

(11:16):
And but I was doing it anyways,and I was figuring out like the
path to I don't I just look atfailure as feedback.
I tried this, didn't work.
Doesn't mean it doesn't workbecause I see other people doing
it, it just means I haven'tfigured it out yet.
And so I don't want I certainlydid well early on, but there's

(11:37):
been periods where we didn't dowell for a long time.
And you know, there is ups anddowns to it, and
entrepreneurship really requiresa resolve that like you believe
in yourself, you get up everyday, expect to win, even when
you know your past 30 dayshasn't proven that out.

SPEAKER_02 (11:53):
Yeah.
But you spent the time, theattention, and even with the
good and the bad, you figuredout how to make this your
full-time gig, but then also howto help other businesses
implement the same strategiesthat you used.

SPEAKER_01 (12:08):
Yeah.
Yeah.
The way that that happened is,you know, I had about five or
six people in a Facebook groupthat we all shared ideas to sell
sell more shirts.
And I just believe that successleaves clues.
And so when they would have asuccessful one, we could learn
from that.
And same when we had successfulones, they would learn from it.
And all of us did really, reallywell in that type of format.

(12:30):
And so what I did when thet-shirts, you know, we moved out
of that business and moved intoShopify.
I contacted those people thatwere in that group, and they had
all moved on to their ownplatform too, because we wanted
to own the data from all ofthese sales so we could build a
better, more solid business.
And I said, Hey, I think I'vefigured some things out.

(12:54):
Let me share with you.
And if it works, you can pay me.
And if it doesn't work, you'renot out anything.
And they're like, okay.
And so the first two that Ihelped, they got extremely good
results.
And when they were doing about400,000 a month, and we got them
to 2.7 million a month withinthe first six months, and in
print on demand, you know, wecould have got there a lot

(13:16):
sooner, but it just required alot of inventory and shipping
and and growth that uh theyweren't ready for.
So the business is there if youdo the right things.
And then the the next one, wetook them from 2.75 million the
year before to within 90 days,they were on a nine nine million
dollar run rate and they endedup doing 16 million that year.

(13:37):
I'm like, okay, so this stuffliterally works.
One was for a supplement, theother was for print on demand.
And the store that I was that Iowned and was working with was
kitchen supply.
So I'm like, okay, if we fix thewebsite, it doesn't matter what
they're selling.
It's pretty, I didn't just getstruck by lightning, but this
works.
And so then we literally that'show BGS was built and born was

(14:01):
around we started helping otherpeople do it and teaching them
what we were doing.

SPEAKER_02 (14:06):
You answered part of my next question, which was what
kind of clients do you workwith?
Because a lot of times we knowthat what when we niche down, we
can get a lot more business, wecan scale faster.
You have niche down though intohelping specific types,
e-commerce businesses, even ifit's not, you know, your your

(14:27):
kind of category agnostic.

SPEAKER_01 (14:29):
Yeah, yeah.
We don't care about the productbecause we use data and
analytics.
So it's really how the personinteracts with the website.
And so if you have a websitethat makes sales or collects
leads, we can look at whatthey're doing on the website and
optimize that process in orderto make it more efficient.

SPEAKER_02 (14:47):
And what does this look like for you today?
Because we also know a lot morepeople are using different
agentic AI and different AItools to help with some of these
work streams.
And every big company,Salesforce, SubSpot are trying
to figure out how to keep theircustomers in those platforms and
roll out more things.

SPEAKER_01 (15:07):
Yeah, I think AI is amazing.
Obviously, in the data andanalytics world that we're in,
it makes us way smarter and waymore efficient.
And so we're getting some of thebiggest wins that we've gotten
ever in our company in 12 years,the last several months, by
using it as an efficiency tool.

(15:28):
And I think what that does is,you know, we're very deliberate
about how we use it.
It's not meant to replacepeople, it's meant to help them
do their job better.
And the other thing that I'venoticed is the clients that we
work with that use it, they cangrow much faster and much larger
without adding more teammembers, which makes them more

(15:52):
profitable and less to manage.
Because I really believe themore people you have, the more
energy that that takes away frombeing able to focus on the
business itself.

SPEAKER_02 (16:03):
Yeah.
Yeah, that's very true.
So talk to us about some of thethings that you do.
Because you obviously you canwork fully hand in hand with
clients.
Do you have other things forpeople who are maybe not quite
there?
They're just thinking about aproduct or service that they
want to sell online, or theythey've, you know, at the baby

(16:24):
steps.

SPEAKER_01 (16:24):
Yeah, if you go to our website,
buildgrowthscale.com, we have ablog.
We also embed all of thepodcasts that we do.
And so you can see uh weliterally believe that I will
tell you our very best thingsthat we're doing, and you don't
need us to do it.
You can go implement ityourself.
And typically what we want to dois help them grow to a point

(16:47):
where they go, Wow, this stuffreally works.
I want someone to do it for usso that we can focus on the
business.
And then we would partner withthem and do that.
So all of our resources arefree.
We have a couple of like smallerthings that we do with them,
just kind of to what I say isit's it's dating before you ask

(17:07):
for marriage.
And so uh really it's a way forthem to get to know us and us to
get to know them because we'rein a place where we really only
want to work with people that welike and enjoy.
And I think that that'simportant too, because you spend
enough time at work, so a lot oftimes more time than you get
with your family on a dailybasis.
And so you might as well enjoywho you work with.

SPEAKER_02 (17:29):
Absolutely.
And with the the kind of numbersthat you're talking about, I
imagine that there is thatthreshold that you want to make
sure that this is a provenproduct and service already that
you know that you can scale.

SPEAKER_01 (17:42):
Yeah, we typically our sweet spot is the companies
that do about 250,000 a month toa million and helping them scale
that to much better, you know,much bigger numbers.
Yeah, they've already got youknow that they have a good
product.
They know how to sell enoughthat, you know, they're

(18:02):
profitable.
We go in there and just make itway more efficient and move more
units.

SPEAKER_02 (18:07):
Yeah.
And I see on your websitePiperloo, Pink Lily, Organifi,
Soho Social House, Game DayCouture.
So there's a little bit ofvariety in there.
Does somebody have to have aphysical product or can it be a
service-based business?

SPEAKER_01 (18:24):
No, it can certainly be digital.
In fact, I think that that'ssomething that we didn't do well
for a lot of years.
We kind of pigeonholed ourselvesinto just physical products.
And about two years ago now, Ihad a friend that was selling a
digital product and asked me tolook at their website.
And I did, and I implemented afew of the things that we do on

(18:46):
the physical products, and wegot a 10% lift on their
checkout, which for them, theydo about$60 million a year.
So it was a six million dollarlift for them, and it was one
test.
And so I was like, oh wow, ifthey have a digital product and
we help them, we don't createany other problems, they can
scale it infinitely.

(19:06):
Where if you sell physicalproducts, like when we worked
with Piper Loo and helped themscale up to$2.7 million a month,
that's a lot more units.
And so it required like scale alot of times will break systems
and requires, you know, a biggerteam.
So that created a new problemthat they needed to learn how to

(19:27):
solve.
Where with digital products,when we help them, it doesn't
really create a new issuebecause they can, you know, sell
as many as they want.

SPEAKER_02 (19:36):
Yeah.
Yeah, so true.
What is the biggest mistake yousee people make?

SPEAKER_01 (19:42):
Not wanting to talk to their customer.

unknown (19:44):
Oh.

SPEAKER_01 (19:45):
So so many people think when they get online that
that will allow them to hidebehind their computer.
And what I've noticed is thepeople that really treat their
customer like their mom, theyend up having a much better
business that weathers thestorms way better.
You can certainly create a greatbusiness for a little while

(20:05):
until, you know, the marketturns.
But the ones that really do wellwhen the ups and downs and
survive are the ones that have acommunity because they built
that relationship with them andthey treat them like a real
person instead of just someonethat's going to give them a
check.

SPEAKER_02 (20:22):
Yeah.
And that can be a mindset shiftfrom people who are panicked
about starting a business andstarting to monetize because
they've put everything into abusiness.
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (20:33):
Yeah, for sure.
You need to plan a runway.
Very few people figure it outright from the beginning.
It certainly happens.
But I definitely would say uhlearn how to invest an hour or
two every day outside of yourjob into figuring it out.
And, you know, don't be dumb andjust go, okay, I have three
months of runway to figure thisout.

(20:54):
I'm gonna go quit my job and andgo all in.
That typically could backfire ina bad way.
Or, you know, there's probablysome people that have done it
and and they were great at it,but that's not gonna be the
norm.

SPEAKER_02 (21:06):
We've talked a lot about using data analytics,
simple things that people needto do, which I mean, simple, but
maybe not so simple depending,you know, because you have to
have that shift.
And and you call this yourrevenue optimization
methodology.
So is there a whole checklistpeople have to have, or is there
a survey they do to get startedto so that you take them through

(21:29):
so that you know exactly whatyou need to do for each per each
company?

SPEAKER_01 (21:33):
Yeah, for sure.
We have like best practices.
Typically we'll do an audit forthem where we just jump on a
call and walk through theirwebsite and help them out and
then go from there.
We don't charge anything to dothat.
It's just a a matter of if wecan provide some value, then
that again, that's our way ofcreating a long-term
relationship.

(21:53):
And if they grow and it worksand you know they want to come
back and do business with us,we'd love that.
But that's not required in orderto start the relationship.

SPEAKER_02 (22:02):
Yeah.

unknown (22:03):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (22:03):
And I think that's a really beautiful thing because
that's that's how we build andtrust within each other's
businesses.

SPEAKER_01 (22:10):
Yeah, but and it's worked for us.
We don't advertise, like weliterally have no longer
advertised to get new clients.
It's literally people find usthrough podcasts or word of
mouth and referrals.
And for us, you know, you couldgrow too fast and implode
because it's so much work foreach individual client.
We could take on more than whatwe could handle and then deliver

(22:33):
a poor service.
And so for us, it's more of abeing very hyper-aware of what
we can do and how many that wecan deliver that world-class
service to and uh not let ourego get in the way.

SPEAKER_02 (22:46):
Mm-hmm.
Definitely.
And it is, it's like you'replucking all the questions right
out of my head because I didwant to ask about ad spend if
there is, you know, a percentagethat you recommend people do
spend so that they can seebetter results along with your
system.

SPEAKER_01 (23:01):
Yeah, for sure.
You need eyeballs in order forthe data to be meaningful.
The more data we have, thebetter decisions we can help you
make.
And so one, knowing how to trackyour data accurately is really
important.
And then from there, doing it ina way that's sustainable.
Because if it's a if it feelslike a whole nother job to learn

(23:22):
your data, then you're not gonnado it or you're gonna put it
off.
And so, yeah, we would clarifylike what metrics really matter
and then get those and thenstart there.
And eventually, you know, atscale, you're gonna have more
points that you're looking at.
But to get them from 10 grand amonth to 100 grand a month,

(23:42):
there's you know, three or fourthings that they can look at and
kind of reverse engineer.
And so we just go through thatwith in that process.

SPEAKER_02 (23:49):
Wonderful.
Where do you see yourself goingin the company going?

SPEAKER_01 (23:54):
That's a great question.
I actually get up every dayexcited to go to work and do
this.
It really the way that I see itis by helping a business owner
do better and that they get toaccomplish their dreams.
And so for us, I find it veryfulfilling.
They they end up having, youknow, they show up better as a

(24:15):
parent or as a business owner ifthe business is doing well and
if it's profitable and theyunderstand, you know, all the
aspects of it.
So for me, I really get a lot offulfillment out of helping
people build their dreams.

unknown (24:29):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (24:29):
Yeah, I'll probably keep doing it for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 (24:31):
Yeah.
Amazing.
Amazing.
And do you think that use of AIis going to continue being an
efficient helper, or do youthink at some point it's going
to be an industry disruptor?

SPEAKER_01 (24:42):
It's definitely already disrupting the industry.
So certainly for the informationpeople, because you know, now
they can have a$20 smartestassistant in the world on their
phone and and their laptop.
And so the information isn't theissue.
Now it's being able to havesomeone that can essentially

(25:03):
share their perspective in a waythat the new business owner can
use it because we don't haveinformation problem.
We typically have a timeproblem.
There's lots of information andit's free.
We just need to know what towork on.
And so we give most of ourinformation out for free.
But where the real value is, isin knowing what to work on and

(25:24):
and what to filter out so thatit's not just a distraction.

SPEAKER_02 (25:28):
Yeah.
That is one of the biggestthings that we have to tackle
right now.
And because there's so muchinformation out there, it can be
really easy to go down a rabbithole and like you said earlier,
spend a lot of time working onone piece of the business that
you're raising your hand.
Yeah.
That isn't necessarily the placethat you should be.
Yeah.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (25:46):
Yeah.
Yeah.
We we tend to gravitate towardsthe parts that we like or that
are fun, but that's notnecessarily the most important.

SPEAKER_02 (25:55):
For people who are listening, all of our students
do capstone projects where theycreate a digital business or
they create a website or apodcast, whatever it might be.
But what are some categoriesthat you think are going to
continue performing really well?
Or how should somebody approachstarting a digital business in
this day and age?

SPEAKER_01 (26:16):
I think so.
I've been asked this question alot.
Like they said, hey, if you'regoing to start another one, what
would you do?
And to be honest, I think Iwould go into the pet industry.
And I'm going to share why,because I I did a lot of
thinking around this when I, youknow, we've worked with some
very large e-commerce businessesthat were in the pet industry,

(26:39):
and they're very profitable.
I was like, what makes themdifferent?
And I thought about it.
The more that we're on digitalmedia, the less connected we
are.
And I believe that people's petsare the only place that they
actually get unconditional love.
And so because it's there's sucha disparity in the amount that

(27:05):
they'll spend on their petcompared to what they'll even
spend on themselves.
There had to be a reason whythat was.
And I really believe that thatpet gives them that feeling that
all of us are looking for.
And so I think that that's agreat industry to be in.
I don't think it's going to goaway.
I actually think with AI, it'sgoing to get even better.

(27:26):
And I think success can be hadin anything.
Like when you look at everythingaround you, somebody's
successfully creating that andselling it.
I think probably the deeperquestion is is it something that
you're going to enjoy working ona long time, even if the results

(27:47):
aren't immediate?
And I definitely don't believethat you have to love the
industry that you're in, but youneed to at least love the
aspects of running a businessand learning how to do things.
Whether you like dogs or not,there's still a whole bunch of
things you have to do that havenothing to do with dogs in order
to have a dog business.
And so you can enjoy thebusiness aspect of it and not

(28:11):
necessarily sell the widget thatyou're in love with.
So, but I think that the ideathat you're willing to do the
research and AI makes thateasier than ever.
You don't need to reinvent thewheel.
Use, I think success leavesclues.
So see what someone's doingreally well and figure your own

(28:32):
spin on it or figure out anunderserved area of that market.
And that's where you see thepeople that come in and and
really do very well is thatthey've really thought it out
and done the research ahead oftime.

SPEAKER_02 (28:44):
Yeah, fantastic.
And as you're saying all ofthis, you're just making me
think about my little dog that'snot so little, but who's sitting
behind me waiting for a walk andall the treats, yeah, all the
different things that go intopet ownership and wanting to
make sure that they feel loved.

SPEAKER_01 (29:00):
So that's what you get from them.
Like they love youunconditionally.
They like they greet you everyday when you come home.
You know, they want the love andattention and it feels good.

SPEAKER_02 (29:12):
Well, I know that I'm walking away from this
conversation, excited about thejourney I've been embarking on
and digging in a little deeper.
So I'm sure that everybody elsewho's listening who is looking
at going into something indigital has is having the same
reaction.
So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 (29:30):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
I really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 (29:32):
Yeah, it's been a really fun conversation.
Of course, we'll link to yourbook, a call, and also just to
your website in the show notesso that people can get all of
those free resources, startdeveloping a relationship with
you and with Build Grow Scale.

SPEAKER_01 (29:47):
Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 (29:48):
Absolutely.
And thank you to everybody who'swatching this episode or
listening to it.
We'll be back again with anotheramazing guest very shortly.

SPEAKER_00 (29:54):
To learn more about the Master of Science and
Digital Media Managementprogram, visit us on the web.
Web at dm.usc.edu