From Platinum DJ to Tech Giant: The Amazing Entrepreneurial Journey of Peter Schroeder

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Dive deep into the dynamic life of Peter Schroeder, a Danish prodigy whose journey stretches from the vibrant heartbeats of EDM stages to the innovative pulse of the tech world. This tour-de-force not only rose from the ashes of a harrowing plane crash but also has left an indelible mark on the vast arenas of Denmark, captivating up to 180,000 fans in a single night.

From the tender age of nine, Peter showcased an entrepreneurial spirit, launching a beverage venture which would be the first step in his impressive career ladder. By his teens, he had carved a niche for himself in the digital realm, creating Scandinavia's largest artist community. This innate business acumen was matched only by his meteoric rise in the EDM scene under the electrifying persona of Pete Fox. With a staggering 20 platinum and 40 gold records to his name, plus a bevy of nominations at the prestigious Danish DJ awards, Peter's music prowess was both undeniable and unparalleled.

Yet, the horizon beckoned with new challenges. Moving beyond the sonic, Peter channeled his genius into the technology arena. Founding Telzio, he envisioned a world where communications were both unified and simplified. Serving the crème de la crème of the corporate world, including tech behemoths like Facebook, Samsung, and Airbnb, Telzio rapidly emerged as a beacon of innovation.

Journey with us as Peter recounts tales from the frosty landscapes of Scandinavia to the bustling boulevards of LA. Discover the ins and outs of bootstrapping a cutting-edge venture with a partner-in-crime and spouse. Be privy to industry secrets as Peter unveils how a unique entrepreneurial ethos influenced his strategies, and delve into the profound topics of team dynamics, the science of hiring, and the personal tolls and triumphs of the business realm.

For those eager to traverse the terrains of entrepreneurship, arts, and technology, Peter Schroeder promises a voyage filled with insights, anecdotes, and a touch of the extraordinary. Dive deeper into the business he's built at Telzio.com. Engage with Side Hustle City and become an integral part of our Facebook community. Don't miss this enlightening encounter with a modern-day Renaissance man!

Connect with Peter:

• Website: https://telzio.com/ and https://peterschroeder.com/ 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petefox/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/peterrankschroeder
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterrankschroeder/ 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@peterrankschroeder/streams 

As you're inspired to embark on your own side hustle journey after listening to this episode, you might wonder where to start or how to make your vision a reality. That's where our trusted partner, Reversed Out Creative comes in. Specializing in strategic branding and digital marketing, Reversed Out Creative is an advertising agency dedicated to helping you turn your side hustle into your main hustle. With a team of experienced professionals and a track record of helping clients achieve their dreams, they are ready to assist you in reaching your goals. To find out more

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I'm joined by Kyle Stevy, myco-host.
Let's get started, all right?

(00:31):
Welcome back, everybody, to theSide Hustle City podcast.
Today we got a special guest,peter Schroeder.
How are you doing, peter?
I'm doing great.
How are you?
I'm doing good and, as always,well 50% of the time.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Sometimes it's 30% of the time.
It's kind of a cocoa quarter ofa co-host.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
That's all right.
That's all right.
You're here more than MonicaTuck, so that's good yeah, but
I'm like an actual co-host.
Yeah, you're an actual co-host.
So Kyle Stevy, back in action.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Yes, I'm very excited about this one.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, Peter, it's awesome to have you here.
We're reading a little bitabout your background, your
credentials, all the way fromDenmark and now you're in LA.

Speaker 4 (01:07):
now, I'm in LA.
Yeah, I moved here.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Well, I've been here for a while, 10 years now.
How's it cost to live incompared to Denmark?

Speaker 4 (01:15):
Rageous Competeer anywhere in the world actually.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
And do you have a family?
You got to support a family outthere.

Speaker 4 (01:22):
Yeah, yeah, well, not in Denmark.
I had twin babies a year and ahalf ago, so it's serious now.
Congratulations, yeah,congratulations.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yeah, Wow.
Well, enjoy yourself in LAsunny LA.
I mean, it's a little bitdifferent weather than Denmark,
I would say.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
Oh yeah, definitely.
There's no doubt I became abetter person when I moved here
you got sun.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
There's sun.
It's magical with vitamins init.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
No more vitamin D supplements.
No exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:52):
No more of those lamps to not get depressed and
kill yourself.
Oh my God, that's that.
That's that bonus for sure,except that I sit inside in
front of my computer 16 hours aday, so I don't really.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
It doesn't help.
Well, it's awesome, man, tellus about your background.
I mean, you're obviously, youknow, from Denmark.
You've?
You were a DJ for a really longtime.
I think it said you started asa radio host when you were what?
12?
.

Speaker 4 (02:16):
Yeah, Well, I mean, yeah, that's kind of just fell
in my lab, I feel like mostthings do.
I just do things that I thinkare fun, and that was fun.
I was invited into to kind ofbe a what do you call it A
children's reporter for like ashow on a national radio when I
was, yeah, probably 11 or 12.
And then from there on I kindof graduated to the national TV

(02:40):
and did the same thing there fora couple of years before I,
before my voice changed and Ireally this is funny because I
did the same thing.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
I was on a show for teenagers when I was a kid for
two seasons and it was duringthe summer when school was out
and I had to be a reporter andit was called a.
It was a group called CitizensAgainst Substance Abuse, so the
whole thing was to, like, keeppeople off of drugs and alcohol
and show kids there were otherthings to do and we would go out
and we'd create our own TV showreally, and we do reports on

(03:10):
whatever.
We had to come up, write ourown stories and film them, and
then we come back and then I wasone of the hosts of it, but
that's.
It was really fun.
It taught me a lot and itintroduced me to technology and
television and all that stuff,and I'm guessing it did the same
thing for you and it kind ofsent you on that path.

Speaker 4 (03:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, I've always, always,been fascinated about these
kinds of things.
We're just talking before theshow started here, about how all
the studio I mean you know I'mgoing technology bongers on
broadcast equipment because I'mjust into that kind of stuff and
that just started back then,there's no doubt.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Wow, and there you kind of like what went into
music.

Speaker 4 (03:49):
No.
So when I was 14, I started thewebsite.
That was my first website.
That was like right when theinternet became a thing.
So I started this onlinecommunity for artists.
I have some friends that werereally good at drawing and
painting and that kind of stuff,so I was like you should put
that on the internet.
That's what people do now.
So I made a website and anotherpeople started submitting the
things and all of a sudden I hadScandinavia's biggest community
for artists and I sold that inan hour's 18 when I started

(04:13):
DJing.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
So you see, Scandinavia to me seems like a
sneaky, like quiet place whereyou would get like awesome art.
I don't know, becauseCopenhagen has like some sort of
just like in Stockholm has likemysteriousness to for me,
because I'm like in, you know,kentucky, hillbilly, and I don't
ever leave the country, but tome like always think about the

(04:35):
Vikings and the descendants ofVikings and like all this other
like cool, like how they wouldintermingled with all the
Eastern civilizations and theyintermingled with the Europeans,
and I was like a really cool,like melting pot, for you know
where the world's kind ofconverged in the north.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Well, they were wealthy also, especially the
Dutch.
I mean, I mean, the Dutch did afew paintings right, yeah, yeah
.

Speaker 4 (04:59):
I mean.
So what's really interesting islike we don't have anything
else Like remember that,especially Denmark, there's no
natural resources, there's noroom for farming, there's no
anything.
All we have is brains.
So, you know, the governmenthas just been really making sure
that people get educated.
Well, it's free, you actuallyget paid to go to school in

(05:20):
Denmark, so that you don't haveto take an extra job while
you're in school.
So we have smart people, butthat's also the only thing we
have.
So we kind of have to doubledown on that.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
You got to export the smartness somehow, which is
where you come in, which is nowyou're in LA.
They exported you all the wayto LA.

Speaker 4 (05:34):
Oh, yeah, I mean.
Denmark has a whole center fortechnology up in Silicon Valley
with several hundred governmentemployees, people just to help
Danish tech companies.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Oh, wow, oh, that's impressive.
Oh, so they just yeah, oh, thatmakes a lot of sense.
So if you're Danish and you'relike, it's almost like an
embassy for technology.

Speaker 4 (05:56):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, and you know, a lot of big tech
companies that you probablydidn't think about are, you know
, founded in Denmark, like uh,send us, or Skype, or you know
there's, there's a bunch of ofthese like really big ones that
come out of Denmark.
Really.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
Oh wow, yeah, Like Spotify Swedish right Swedish
yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
Nokia is finished right and yeah, no, yeah, yeah,
that's right.
Linux, I use Linux.
We do WordPress sites.
All the time is based in Linux.
So yeah, that's crazy.
So then you and you got intotechnology and you've been doing
what did it say you were doingIT or technology work for about
20 years?

Speaker 4 (06:33):
Yeah, so that's the thing I've actually just done
both music and technology mywhole life, like simultaneously.
Even when I was in the musicindustry for a long time and I
had a record label, I would bewriting the software to manage
the releases and and, and, youknow, making sure that the tours
were planned correctly and allthese different things, that
royalties and stuff.
And at the same time, you know,when I, when I was producing

(06:55):
music, I would be writingplugins for the, for the
programs I was using and stufflike that.
So I've always been a majornerd.
And then you know, like reallylike playing around with
computers, and then I'm alsovery creative at the same time.
So you know I love music.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
Well, talk about some of this music that you did.
I mean, it's a, you know we gotthe thing it's.
You got platinum records, goldrecords.
You've helped on.
I mean, what are?
What are some of the ones likepeople would know?

Speaker 4 (07:20):
Well, you probably don't know a lot of the things
over here.
I did most of them in Europe.
Of those things there are popthings, but yeah, I mean I've
just had them at hands and a lotof different things over the
years.
I might know some of it if youhear it, but yeah, Were you with
Ace of Base.

(07:40):
That was like five years beforeme.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
Good old Ace of Base.
Oh my God, dude, you broughtsomething out of nowhere they're
legendary.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
I know there are two girls but the one lead singer
and what the hell's the name oftheir top song.
I saw the sign.
I think that was the girl thatbrought me into puberty, because
her voice I don't know.
For whatever reason, I was like, oh, the girls are awesome.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
I love her voice.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
I thought you were going to say Abba, Abba yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
I'm not that old, Not that old, right?
Oh man, that's good stuff, butyeah, so okay.
So now you've got a new company, Tellzio, and all this stuff
you've done over your life.
I mean it sounds like you'vebeen ahead of things for a lot
of cases.
I mean you were ahead of themon the internet.
You were able to build up acompany, sell that, you build a
community which back then, whenthe internet was first

(08:34):
burgeoning, you didn't know whatthe internet was going to be.
I mean, I remember there was atime when people were saying
Amazon would never make moneybecause nobody wanted to put
their credit card on theinternet.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
You know and nobody.
Why would anybody?
Go to why would anybody go intoa computer when they can just
go to the mall and get whateverthey need?

Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah, that was the, that was the narrative, right.
I mean, that was the thing.
It was like nobody's going to,nobody's going to trust the
internet, and you know, thensecurity things got better and
people started trusting it.
And then things like PayPalcame out and now you got, you
know, stripe and all these otherthings.
But, yeah, I mean, you've gotto kind of see where it's headed
and it made sense for you andyou started this community of

(09:12):
artists and you had artistfriends.
So you took what you knew.
Right, you took the people thatyou knew.
You looked at this newtechnology, were like like this
makes sense for what I think wecould use it for.
Turns out, everybody startedbuilding communities and you
know Facebook's a decent sizecompany.

Speaker 4 (09:29):
Yeah, it's funny because a lot of the features
that actually made Facebook bigwere things that we had on that
platform back then.
You know that the ability toinstant message and to upload
your pictures and have otherpeople comment on them, rate
them, and these kinds of things,and it was 1998.
But you know, a different angle, obviously like this was art,
that people commented on eachother's art.

(09:49):
But you know, it's, it's I'm.
I'm never like inventinganything.
I'm like you said, I just seethings that are available or
things that are happening intech, and then I can't stop
playing with it.
And then you know all of asudden, oh, I built something.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, that's really how it goes.
I went down to this old Mark Ztook some of your ideas and
stuck them in Facebook.
At one point Sounds like hekind of pulled yeah, Exactly,
yeah.
Maybe he said in the letter hey, I just need 10,000 shares of
stock and we'll call it even yes.
So yeah, help you pay for someof that cost of living there in

(10:24):
California.
He's going to need 100,000shares for that.
Yeah, he might need 100,000shares.
Yeah, Well, just start thereand then work your way back.
We'll see what you get Exactly.
So so tell us about Tellsio.
Let us know like where you atwith it.
You know, I looked at the site.
The site looks great.
I mean, it sounds like.
I mean, are you guys?
You got like a price list onthere and everything.

(10:44):
I guess you guys are rollingright, Technologies build and
you've probably raised a littlebit of money.

Speaker 4 (10:50):
No, so that's actually funny.
So we've been at it for 10years now.
It's been been a while andwe've actually just been having
fun building a product that, andyou know, like that, that can
beat the other guys.
They are the big, you know,multinational public companies
making billions of dollars.
We just a little bit of youknow a few few smart people here
in LA and some scattered aroundthe world that have built a

(11:13):
product that's better, worksbetter, and we've just had
really a lot of fun with that.
Over the years we never raisedmoney, bootstrapped it and kind
of just grew it month by monthpretty much, since we started
just adding features when peoplecame and asked for them.
And you know, if it made senseto add it, then we added it.
And all of a sudden, you know,bigger customers came in because

(11:33):
now we had those things andthey asked for other things and
then we added that.
You know.
So over the years that's kindof just how it's been growing
and you know we went from havingjust you know, I think the
first month we made $300 and nowwe are a decent sized company
that you know has customers likeFacebook and Google and Lyft

(11:54):
and Samsung and a bunch of smallcompanies and mid-sized as well
, so it's fun.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
So you are getting some money back from Mark.

Speaker 3 (12:04):
So we have people from all different you know
stages of entrepreneurship.
You said you guys bootstrappedit.
Like what led to that thoughtprocess?
As opposed to, I want to growsuper fast, I want to take all
money from investors so we canbuild this thing quickly and,
you know, get it up and movingand market it and become like

(12:24):
one of the big dogs right away.
What like was it?
Just that you guys already hadthe cash.
You didn't need to take oninvestors.
You didn't want to have to dealwith the headache of, you know,
invest your man.

Speaker 4 (12:33):
No, no no, we actually.
So I founded the company withmy wife back then we had just
met and she cast in her 401k andthat was how we got started.
We literally had no money whenwe started and just kind of just
scrambled to make ends meet forthe first couple of years.
So we took definitely the longroute and we also thought we had

(12:54):
to go grow super fast and raisemoney from a VC in Silicon
Valley.
And that's how you do it,because that's all you hear
about.
That's the only story you hear.
Never hear about the ones thatdon't raise money.
You never hear about the onesthat you know don't get the
money from the ones you pitch to.
And in my book there's a big orthis, something I've come to
learn over the years.

(13:15):
I feel there's a big differencebetween entrepreneurs who are
technical and who are in it forthe product and for the love of
building something, versus theones that are in it for raising
money and getting an exit.
That's two completely differentgames.
Unfortunately, you only hearabout the one with the raising
money part.

(13:35):
That's the only story you hear.
But it's hard to raise money Ifthat's not your like, what
you're good at, and if you don'thave anyone on the team, it's
really, really hard and peopletell you that's how you have to,
that's the only way to do itand that's how you have to do it
.
So we tried doing that for along time until we found out,

(13:56):
realized that that's just not us, that's not what we are, that's
not what we are interested in,really, like, we started to
understand that as we weregrowing and things actually, you
know, started to pick up and westarted being able to hire and
actually getting a proper teambehind we.
You know, we found out that,yeah, maybe we actually don't
have to raise that money andmaybe it's a good thing that we

(14:16):
own 100% so we can keep buildingthe product that we actually
like and we can take it theplace we want us to take it.
So that's our story.
I mean, I'm not saying that'sthe only only one, but you never
hear about those guys out there.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
Unfortunately, there's a big sigh of relief in
Cincinnati when you say that,because this isn't exactly the
hotbed for raising capital forinvestment.
So a lot of you're exactlyright.
People hear about like Adamscompany's exit and they hear
about other exits here in thearea.
Oh well, I just I got to get tothat point as quickly as I can
get to that point, andeverybody's telling me that the
best way to do it is go talk toan angel investor.

(14:51):
Or, if I'm past that stage, Igot to talk to a VC.
And if I got to give up 45% ofthe company to, you know, reach
the X percent more markets thanso, be, it is just the way it's
got to be.
So I think that that message isperfect for people that are
listening, like you don't alwayshave to do it the way that
you've heard.
You have to do it.

Speaker 4 (15:11):
Yeah, that's the only only path and you know, we had
an offer maybe one or two yearsin, for I think it was $250,000
for 50% of the company.
I'm pretty happy that we didn'ttake that today.
Oh my God, it was tempting backthen because we needed money to
hire the first employee.
We needed to do this and thisand that, but I'm so happy we

(15:33):
didn't do it.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yeah, I mean, you got sales.
Now You've got great customers.
It sounds like.
But yeah, cincinnati is just abunch of cheap Germans.
They're all from like.
I found out why.
I found out why and I've saidit before on this podcast I did
my research and I found out myancestors from, like, the Bodden
, wittensburg area of Germany,right down there.
Apparently, those are thecheapest people in Germany.

(15:55):
So so Angela Merkel even toldeverybody in Germany they should
be as thrifty as the people ofthat region, right?
And then I said well, if I'mfrom that region, if my ancestry
goes back to there, then abunch of other people in this
city.
That explains it.
That's why it's so cheap.
That's why these people don'twant to spend any money here.
Personally, I don't likespending money either.

(16:16):
I'm one of those sticking underthe mattress and you know, save
it for a rainy day, kind ofpeople.
But that's that whole mindset.
I think it came over here orsomething.
And now it's like this wholeareas.
But everybody thinks that'slike, oh, if I do this, I've got
to go raise money.
And I think the reason is andsee what you said to is is you
guys, you guys weren't loadedwith cash.

(16:36):
You guys didn't have a wholebunch of money you didn't get.
You know, you weren'tbequeathed with this great
inheritance or anything.
I mean, you guys, you didn'thave much right and and and you
just met your co-founder.
For God's sake, who happened to?
Who happens to be your wife now, which is also kind of risky.
I mean, you're just taking allkind of risk.

Speaker 4 (16:54):
Oh yeah, and that was also one of the big ones we
heard obviously from from theinvestors is like, yeah, we
don't want to invest in a couple, and you know we weren't
married back then either, sojust, that's right.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
It can be risky.
It can be risky and investors Ilike it.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
So we worked out for FTX in Alameda.
Oh yeah, ftx, yeah, that couple, that was a power couple right
there, buddy.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
Actually, I just read Dave Wilbrand.
He just posted something todayon LinkedIn.
It said that a lot of VCs nowdon't want to invest in second
time founders.
So if you had a successful exitalready, they don't want to
invest in that that secondstartup that you have, for
whatever reason.
I don't know if they've gotdata to back it up or what,

(17:37):
probably the complacency of it.
It might be you're not ashungry when you're cashing in a
401k.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
You've got.
You're basically burning thebook.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
You have to do it, it has to work.
That's true too, because Icatch myself being a little lazy
sometimes too, and you know,you've really got to be able to
motivate yourself, because itwould be easy to just sell
everything and just off I go.
There is all my property, justsell that off and go live in
Central America somewhere,thailand or who knows.

(18:05):
It would be easy to do that,right, but that's not what I
want to do.
So I mean you've got to staymotivated.

Speaker 4 (18:14):
Yeah, I mean I don't see myself ever retiring.
I just can't sit still.
I have too much ADD for that.
I just like.
I like what I do.
I like building things.
So I think there's a differenceon that, but I can definitely
understand the hunger aspect ofit for sure.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah, I think there needs to be a.
You know there needs to be ahunger there.
If you're a VC and you'relooking for somebody to invest
in, there definitely needs to bea desire there for that person
to really want to fight.
And if you're going to givesomeone money, like they have to
almost feel bad about losingthat money.
You know it's.

(18:51):
And if you're just, if you'vehad an exit before and you know
you've raised hundreds ofmillions of dollars, you know
money's not anything to you.
Like a little $25,000 investoror $50,000 investor, you're like
, ah, that wasn't a lot of money.
You know, when you're used todealing with big, big dollars
but when you come from likepoverty and you look back and
you think like damn, $10,000,that's a lot of money.

(19:12):
Like when you were a kid,that's, that was a fortune.
Like how many toys could youbuy with $10,000, you know.

Speaker 4 (19:18):
Yeah, and now seriously like that's.
That's exactly how we were Likewhen I, when I moved here, I
had just met my now wife, diana,and she had been in Denmark for
three months and during thattime I got the idea for Tel-Zio
and started coding.
I was waiting for a visa tocome here.
It took me three months to getthat.

(19:38):
I didn't know how long it'sgoing to take, so I had already
stored everything in in thestorage unit and moved up one of
my dad's couch and just waitfor the visa.
But I was up there just codingyou know, the beta of Tel-Zio.
While I was waiting up there,when it was done, I literally
packed my two bags.
I have a picture of it from theday I left, packed two bags of
clothes and my laptop, and Ithink I had maybe $1200 or

(20:01):
something like that on, like onmy bank account.
That was it.
And I moved over here, took aflight over and we launched it a
few days later and, yeah, thatwas really just it.
We found out we need a littlebit of money so we could sustain
.
So we cast in her 401k.
That was it.

Speaker 3 (20:17):
What made you pick LA ?

Speaker 4 (20:20):
Well, she's from here , so, yeah, and it's better than
Denmark.
Well, the weather is at least.
So she's actually the onewanting to move back to Denmark
now that we have kids, but theweather is much better here, for
sure.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
Yeah, but I mean there's benefits to being there
too.
I mean you're going to,especially if you've got kids
and, like you said, the freeschool, and I mean there's some
decent social programs there andthings like that to help people
along.
So I mean that's, that'sbeneficial, and they have some
like they really want people tocome there.
So I'm sure there's got to besomething with, like you know,
startups.

(20:53):
There's benefits to being there.
Maybe it's a little easier toraise money because it's like
being here in Kentucky, kentuckyis just going all out for
startups, like they're likeplease come here to Kentucky.
Like nobody wants to come toKentucky, everybody wants to go
to San Francisco and LA and youknow New York, please come here,
you know.
So they're willing to kind ofbend over backwards for you.
And is it like that in Denmark?

Speaker 4 (21:15):
Oh yeah, I read recently that it's on top five
of the best countries to start acompany in the world and it's
really like they're going.
All in the government therethey're really trying to make
sure businesses come and notjust start new companies but
also, you know, attract thebigger ones.
So Microsoft and Uber and abunch of other big tech
companies.
They have their main developerdepartments.

(21:38):
Development departments are inDenmark.
It's where they write most ofthe software, because they have
really good talent there andit's not as expensive as it is,
even though that you know,denmark is not a poor country by
any means.
It's pretty high up there, butthe cost of living is just, you
know, reasonable and for thatreason, you know the salaries

(21:58):
are also reasonable.
So you can get some reallyreally good talent for not as
much as it will cost you inSilicon Valley Wow.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
So do you?
What did your wife do?
What did like when you guys met?
You were a tech, you were intotechnology.
You obviously had thebackground in, you know, being a
DJ.
You had a background in soundslike television, radio, what.
What did she bring to the tableLike when you met her?
What did she have to offer?
What were her talents?

Speaker 4 (22:25):
So she's really good with business.
She had just worked for aprivate equity company that or
like.
What do you call it?
Real estate?
Oh, off source, you know.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:40):
Like a syndication or something like that.

Speaker 4 (22:42):
Yeah, and she, she has.
She had just raised a billiondollars for that company.
You know, she knows those kindof things and she knows how you
run a company, how you do thosethings in various smart girl.
So she, she kind of you knowbrings the whole.
How do you actually run abusiness and make sure the
lights stay on and that we don'tspend the whole 401k on pizza

(23:08):
and beer Friday afternoon, right?
Yeah, so she's a martyr of thatand she's really, really, really
talented on that, and so wecompliment each other really
well and I think that's probablyalso the secret to why we've
been able to work together for10 years is that, you know,
she's the CEO of the company andreally the CEO and and and you
know, it's really just a titlefor me, because I, you know, I

(23:29):
have a vision, but she's the onerunning the business and and
she's, she's, she's really goodat that part and we're really
good at at separating things.
So you know, I can, I can focuson product marketing, branding,
all the creative and thetechnical things that I'm good
at, and she can focus on makingsure that we actually have a
company to to grow.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
I love this.
It's always like when you hearabout the successful startups,
it's always team.
They always seem to have theright mix of people.
If you don't go into somethingor if you're trying to do people
favors, you're starting a newcompany and you're like oh, you
know what you're.
You're my buddy of mine.
Why don't you come into thecompany?
Or oh, you seem like you knowwhat you're talking about.
Come into the company.

(24:09):
You know you're just givingpeople equity and you're just
bringing all anybody into thecompany.
Those don't generally work out,but if you've got the right mix
of people, they're alldetermined.
Everybody's aligned on a visionfor the business.
Everybody's like look, this ishow we're going to do it.
We're going to make this thingsuccessful.
Nobody's going to give up.
We're going to work hard andpeople are business minded.

(24:29):
It works.
There's something about it thatworks.

Speaker 3 (24:32):
This is where you get to plug your personality test.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
Oh yeah, I know, I always I like to use like
Myers-Briggs and Enneagrams andthings like that.
And there's actually a companythat we had.
They're a VC company here inNorthern Kentucky and they
actually, instead of eventalking to a company are you
emailing anything to them youhave to go on their website and
you have to take per—like.
All the founders takepersonality tests and if one—at

(24:59):
least one of you doesn't havelike there's what four or five
they said that were reallyhighly ranked, there's like
INTJs, I think, are number one,entps are really high.
But you have to have the rightkind of mix of founders,
otherwise they're just like theykind of write you off.
That's like one of the firstthings to filter people out.

Speaker 4 (25:18):
Spot on.
We are actually those two thatyou mentioned right there, and
we actually ask all ouremployees to take my outbreaks
when they start here.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
I'm telling you at work.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
People make fun of it , but no, it's, I'm not making
fun of it.
We don't have money from themwe spend all our money.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
It works.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
It works.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
So which one are you?

Speaker 4 (25:39):
You can use some tools to understand each other,
like for sure.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
You know what?
You're an ENTP, I'm guessing.
Yeah, I am Okay, I'm an ENTP,yeah, and then Kyle's an ENFP.

Speaker 4 (25:49):
Oh, interesting.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
That's rare.
Yeah, it is.
It's a lot more rare than us,Actually, we're what?
3%.
I think we're only 3% of thepopulation, but the INTJ is
really the one you want too.
They're the ones that can sitdown and focus where we're all
over the deck on place and we.

Speaker 4 (26:04):
Like I said earlier, I have Raging ADD and that's why
I need someone like Diana, whocan sit down and focus on those
things that are not fun.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
Yeah, and my wife is an INTP, so she's a little more
focused than I am, but she'salso.
She's one of those that Onceshe gets on one thing, she just
goes down the rabbit hole on it,which is good.
And me I'm all over.
I'm just Every day I gotsomething new I want to do.
I hear about somebody making abunch of money at something and
I'm like, oh, I'm going to trythat now.
I just need a team, and you'reprobably the same way, peter.

(26:33):
I just need a team of peoplethat I can just tell like, hey,
we're going to do this now, andthen they just go and do it for
me, and then I don't know thewords.

Speaker 4 (26:41):
Yeah, see, that's my problem is I hate managing
people.
I would love to have a team.
That's also why we actuallyhave a very small team compared
to our number of customers.
I've been able, over the years,to put together some people
that are really, really smart,so I don't have to have a lot of
people, so I don't have tomanage them.
That's really Because I hatemanaging.
No telling people what to do, Ihate it.
I just love if I can just saymy ideas and I like, blabber my

(27:06):
visions out and then people justgo do it and do it better than
I could.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yes.
And that's what I have now it'samazing In our heads it makes
total sense, but in practice youdon't know if it's actually
going to work or not, and youneed somebody like your wife to
come in and just try it or giveyou feedback if it's going to
work or not.

Speaker 4 (27:25):
And even understand what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (27:28):
You need the dreamer, you need the doer and you need
the ass kicker.
Like, if you can get thosethree in a group, that's going
to be ideal.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah, we're too nice, Peter ENTPs.
We don't like to be controlled.
We don't like people to tell uswhat to do.
We don't like structure,Because every day we're going to
want to do something different.
We can't come in and do theexact same thing every day.
It's awful, Like I would justthrow myself off a bridge.
So I mean, you want to havevariety and it's hard for us to

(27:56):
manage people because we don'trespect hierarchy.
So we don't feel comfortablemaking other people follow our
little hierarchy or whateverthat we create, because we're
like look, we don't even knowwhat we're doing.
So why would I tell you what todo?

Speaker 4 (28:11):
You know what?
One of my really good friends,will Henshaw, he told me
recently looked me in the eyeand he said hey, peter, you and
I, we are utterly unemployable.
He's British, I can't even saywith his accent, it's so spot on
though Utterly unemployable.
There's no way anyone can hireus.
We just do whatever we think isfun that day and build fun

(28:34):
stuff, and that's a superpowerin itself, but it's hard to deal
with, for sure.

Speaker 3 (28:40):
Yeah, but it makes you a great sales guy.

Speaker 4 (28:43):
Yeah, probably I don't like selling either, so
I'm actually in a good Well, I'mjust saying you know it's one
of those things.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
Well, you've got to sell to your people.
There are people that sell toclients, and there are people
that sell the dream of what theywant to get accomplished.

Speaker 4 (28:57):
That's correct.
You've got to sell division andthat's how you.
That's a leader, right.
You need to try and get yourteam on board with those ideas
and try and convey them and thenbe excited about it and get
that excitement to rub off onthem.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:13):
How many people do you have?

Speaker 4 (29:14):
on your team we are almost 20, I think like 18, 19,
something like that.

Speaker 3 (29:19):
So how do you?
My major fascination withsuccessful corporations is a
consistent culture, so that whenyou go to an office in Miami
you have the same culture orsomewhat of the same culture
about 80% of the same culture asyou do in your office in

(29:39):
Copenhagen, as you would have inLos Angeles, as you would have
in Chicago.
How did you guys, how did you?
I don't, you don't really, Imean you kind of focus on it,
but how did you instill thatwith your guys?
It's hard.

Speaker 4 (29:54):
It's really hard, and especially because we started
getting more and moredistributed.
I mean, we have people.
We only have what four peoplein our LA office now we used to
be Everyone used to be here, andthen one guy in Copenhagen.
Now we are everywhere,literally distributed all over
the US and the world.
We have, you know, and ofcourse, denmark, england, serbia

(30:15):
, philippines and, of course, afew here in the US.
It's hard to do it when peopleare remote and get that culture
and that camaraderie that youneed when, especially when
you're a small team like ours,so people are excited about what
they do.
And I think it's really aboutfinding the right people who are

(30:37):
social online, because a lot ofour for our company things take
place on Slack and those kindof things.
So you need to find people whoare comfortable posting
inappropriate memes and thingslike from the day they start,
and that's really hard to findpeople who are actually

(30:59):
comfortable in joining theconversation about something
random and pitching in.
But if you can find thosepeople and instill this energy
of being okay for everyone tosay whatever and be part of it,
respond to when they postsomething or respond to them, if

(31:21):
you can get that going, thenyou can succeed, and that's what
we finally managed to do.
It's taken a long time for usto kind of get to that point,
but we literally have peoplethat we've never seen in life
and they feel like best friends.
It's special.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yeah, it's hard to, especially nowadays, because you
know workplaces can become sotoxic, especially with
sensitivities, and you know youand I have the same kind of
personality type.
I could not be in anenvironment where people are.
We feel like you have to walkon eggshells right and be scared
to say things.
And I mean you're in LA, you'resurrounded by these people, but

(32:00):
we're in Kentucky, so what'sthe exact opposite here?
Like you could also buystraight to their face.
They stink and they'll be like,yeah, I do kind of stink, and
you're right, so they don't, youknow, they don't care, like
they're not sensitive at allhere.
Like having to be in acorporate environment where
there's so many rules Nowthere's HR, the bigger you get,
the more rules you're going toget, the more strict things are

(32:22):
going to get and it kind of thefun culture kind of starts to go
away.
I mean, you're still you're at20 people now, which is good,
and, like you said, there's alot of people that are remote
there in other countries.
Maybe they don't have the samesensitivities that people in
America have right now, or evenin Europe.
I mean, you've got some ofthese things going on in some of
these European countries too.
What do you do to and this is agood point you bring up Kyle.

(32:46):
What do you do as you start toscale even past where you're at
now?
I mean you're a 20.
Eventually you could get to ahundred.
You know you could double,triple the company in the next
year or two.
How do you?
How do you manage that?
Do you even want to touch that,or do you let the wife do that?

Speaker 4 (33:04):
No, I mean we, we.
I think one of the main thingsto really understand is you
can't ask the CEO, a founder, befriends with your employees, so
you can't be the one doing this.
There's just that just doesn'twork.
There has to be a buffer,otherwise it's not going to be
real what they do.
You can participate and postmemes and whatever you're doing

(33:26):
Like, but you can't be the onecreating that culture.
And we found out about that thehard way.
We really we have an employeethat's been actually one of our
first team members, who startedas a sales person with us and
was doing a great job.
He was just the perfect personfor that position at that time
at the company.

(33:46):
But as we grew and doing likeright before COVID, I think
things have just changed becausewe've grown as an organization.
We were in a different placeand she is not a salesperson by
heart.
She's not like the aggressivehunter.
She's not like that person thatwe needed at that time.

(34:08):
So we did the major mistake ofletting her go and that felt
horrible because she was one ofthe first people and I was sick
for a week, literally.
That's the only time I'veactually like physically been
sick from firing someone.
Geez it felt bad.
But the thing was then COVID hitand we started hiring a lot of
people remotely and the culturewas completely gone.

(34:31):
Like there was none of thiscamaraderie.
There's no.
Like it was just boring.
Like there was literally you'regoing to be a trumbleweed
through the Slack channel Likethere was nothing going on and
no one had any like, no one knewanything about themselves, each
other in, like personal lifeand anything like that.
And we're like what's going onhere?
Like how do we get back to thatpoint where we can sing karaoke

(34:53):
Friday afternoon and be sodrunk that we have to take an
Uber home?
What happened.
We found out that that was her.
She was that buffer, she wasthat one that created that
culture, that engaged andstarted like got people out of
their shell.
So we were like, okay, yeah, wemade a mistake.
And finally like one thing wasthat she was not the right

(35:14):
person for the position that shewas in, but there were so many
other things that she wascontributing.
So we ended up figuring outlike, well, if that wasn't the
right position, what is?
And we found out that well,there are actually things that
she would be perfect for doingthat we need in the company.
So we hire her back.
We asked her like we wereliterally down on our knees,
asking her hey, could you pleaseconsider coming back?

(35:35):
We'll give you a huge raise andall these benefits, and then
you're going to be in charge ofthese and these and these things
which you're, like, really goodat.
And then you know we just needyou on our team, like there's no
doubt.
And that completely changed thecompany.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
Do you know what kind of personality type she had?

Speaker 4 (35:57):
Yeah, I should know.
I'm sorry, but yeah, similar tous.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
Yeah, no, no, no, but similar to us, like I mean, you
can sell, right, like we talkedabout earlier, you can sell.
You just don't it's not yourfavorite because you don't like
to, I don't know, you just don'tlike it.
It feels icky for some reason,right?

Speaker 4 (36:17):
Yeah right.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
You just not good at telling people things that
you're not 100% confident thatyou can deliver on and I don't
know there's something notdoesn't feel right about it.
But if it's an idea that youhave 100%, like I could get
people pumped, Like I can getpeople aligned, you probably can
too around your concept, aroundyour idea, and you could get

(36:39):
people to want to come on theteam who can then turn around
and sell.
I mean Kyle.
You know Kyle managessalespeople.
I mean he helps trainsalespeople for a company that
and this is a hard sales job, Iwould say, but it's not easy,
yeah actually the cold cause ofthe day was awful.
You did yeah, oh yeah, but it'strucking, it's, it's a, it's a,

(37:00):
they're.
They're a freight broker andthey're one of the biggest in
the country Second biggest,second biggest.
So he's dealing, you know he'sdealing with, you know truckers
all day and you know they're notthe.
They can be a little rougharound, rough around the edges,
you know so.
So not only that, you're kindof dealing with a tough crowd.
On top of that, you're doingsales.
It's just, if I had to do thatjob, I don't know if I could do

(37:21):
it.
It's just dealing with people.
Be tough, yeah yeah, it's.

Speaker 3 (37:25):
I mean it's no company's the same, no industry
is the same.
You just find your, your roleor niche in that industry.
So I grew up in, you know,working class, lower middle
class neighborhood I was.
I went to softball games allthe time with my dad on Friday
nights and guys would go and youknow they would have six to 12
beers before they played orafter they played.

(37:47):
So you were hearing you werehearing adult language.
You were just, I was just usedto those, who, those the people
I was used to being around.
Anyway, for someone who comesfrom a more you know, upscale
upbringing, it's a culture shockfor sure.
Yeah, but that's you know.
You got to have, like you said,you got to find the people that
can fit their roles.
And once you find the peoplethat can fit their roles, it's

(38:08):
you.
You have to support them astheir, as their, progressing.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
Yeah, so what?
What do you think too with?
With tells you like what's thenext step?
I mean, you're at 20 people,you didn't have to raise any
money.
Sounds like you got a great setof customers.
Like, what are you guys lookingfor now?
Is it?
Are you just kind of buildingawareness at this point?

Speaker 4 (38:27):
No, so we actually raising money now.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
Oh, now you're raising money.
Okay, because now you got toget bigger.
Now you got to get to thathundred people, right?

Speaker 4 (38:33):
Now, now, yeah, now we are actually for the first
time we actually be teaming upwith a capital partner and
actually have a three year planfor a serious a and a serious B
funding, and we are at thatpoint now where we can't take it
further ourselves.
Like we need also to hire morepeople on the sales and

(38:57):
marketing side, but also hirepeople that have taken a company
like ours, larger than you know, to eventually, you know,
either public or an acquisition,who knows.
But we also don't want to dothis.
However, like we are 10 yearsand now and we're not going to
be another 10 year we have somany like all of us, the whole

(39:19):
team, have so many ideas everyday of things we need to build
and change and go out and do so.
We don't want to want it tobecome this like lifestyle
business that in so and so manyyears, like we're still stuck
here.
So now we kind of like readyfor the next phase.
We've kind of prepared for thenext for the past almost a three

(39:39):
or four years with for theproduct and put a lot of things
in like in line, and now we'reraising some money and launching
a bunch of things here the nextsix months.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
That's awesome.
So you're I mean, like we saidbefore you're in the perfect
place to raise it to.

Speaker 4 (39:55):
Yeah, yeah, it's no.
Again, we couldn't have raisedthe money if we didn't before.
We weren't ready for it Both.
Personally we weren't.
We didn't have what it takes toraise money at that point.
We also didn't have theproducts.
We didn't have the story andlike that.
Now we actually can prove thata stable business that's been

(40:17):
growing year over year for 10years and customers that stay
with us for well, I mean foreverso far we have one of the best
retention rates in the industry.
So with all these things in theback, now we can actually go
say okay, let's find someone whoknows how to not just raise the
money but also spend that moneyin the right way.

(40:38):
And again, we don't want to goto Silicon Valley and raise $100
million from a VC.
That's not what we are.
We want to actually grow abusiness and spend it on on
getting real sales, instead ofjust like some kind of inflated
thing that doesn't have anyreality.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
Yeah, I mean you hear so many stories now about these
companies that raised all thismoney when everything was cheap,
when money was cheap, right,and you've had hedge funds, you
had everybody had their hand inthe cookie jar a little bit and
they were throwing just crazymoney at these.
I mean billion dollarvaluations, right and left.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
And there's guys were going through like series DEFG
oh it was crazy, yeah, and justraising money without going
public, and it was just likepeople are doing down rounds now
Like it's.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
You know, these guys that had billion dollar
valuations six months ago arenow trying to raise money at you
know $800 million valuation orwhatever, because they just they
raised money was too cheap andnow money is getting a lot
harder to find and it's gettinga lot more competitive and it
can be tough out here, and youknow you're in a really good
industry, though tell peoplejust the main services you guys

(41:45):
offer.

Speaker 4 (41:47):
Yeah, I mean, it's almost a commodity.
So it's something that that'sdefinitely mostly relevant, you
know like, stays relevant, atleast.
I mean it's a business phoneservice provider, right?
So if you really boil it downwith your phone company, we do
business phone service and webuild a platform where it's
really easy for users to go inand manage it and set it up

(42:07):
themselves.
And then we built thisscalability, you could almost
say, where we have a buildingmodel that works for, you know,
startups with one or twoemployees and Fortune 100
companies, because we reallyjust charge.
It's kind of like similar toStripe, where you only charge
for the things you use, so thecalls you make and text messages
and all these things but youget every single feature from

(42:30):
day one.
You don't have to, you know,get an enterprise plan for this
and this much per month just toget a certain feature that you
need.
Now you get everything and thenit's up to you whether you use
it or not, and that works forall kinds of businesses.
So that's why we havebusinesses with, you know, one
or two employees, but we alsohave companies like Facebook and
Samsung.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
I've had a really hard time finding a good company
that I can get, and you knowwhat?
Google has their own phonenumber of things.
You've got Dialpad, you've gotall these services out there.
But for the small businessperson like the guy who's you
know running a small agency, aguy who's you know somebody
who's starting out a startup,and they just need to put a

(43:09):
phone number on their websiteand then be able to get that
phone number actually ring intotheir phone, you know, and be
able to set it up without beinga freaking IT expert.
You know that's that's reallyreally hard and then being able
to scale it up with yourbusiness without being charged
like, oh, I need this service, Ineed this extra feature now.
Oh wait, you got to jump up tolike two more levels in order to

(43:31):
get this other little featureit's crazy and sign through your
contract.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, or I'm still paying offthis stupid phone contract I've
got from the local telephonecompany.
We got like a four yearcontract or something with this
thing just to get front deskphones and a conference phone in
our conference room.

Speaker 4 (43:50):
Yeah, that was exactly why we started this
company.
We needed it ourselves.
I was doing another projectwhere I needed a phone service
and I couldn't find anythingthat was, you know, out of the
box and I couldn't afford.
So I started coding it and thatwas really just the start up,
tells you.
I just found out that, oh, thisis actually fun to work with,
so I just kept going on that oneinstead.
But it really just rebuild itfor ourselves and we use it

(44:12):
ourselves.
So every feature that you knowthat we built, we use ourselves
first and we want to make surethat it's usable and that it's
actually has merits, because wedon't put a lot of things in
there that that you know that isjust useless.
You know that that or that justlike sluffs it up.
And we use, we build thingsthat that you know our customers
ask for and that we can seesome real benefit for.
And you know, because we builtthe whole platform from ground

(44:35):
up, we're not like licensingsome kind of product from
someone else.
That also means that we arecompletely in control with what
we built and you know we can.
We can take it, shape it theway we want it and we can make
sure that it works.
I mean, we haven't been downfor I don't want to say four or
five years, and no one else inour industry can say that
literally not been down a secondfor four years.
That's just because you knowwe're in control and you know

(44:58):
the code because you wrote it.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
And you know where, everything is yeah, you
commented it the right way andyou know you're five guys
writing the whole thing rightExactly.

Speaker 4 (45:07):
We know everything in and out.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
You know, the funny thing is I've noticed there's a
bunch of companies callthemselves like AI companies and
they're like AI websitebuilding companies or whatever,
and they literally are justusing WordPress and they're
using WordPress.
And then they're like stickinga little something on the front
end like just it's like aquestionnaire or something like
that, and all of a sudden it's aWordPress site.
You know it's.
You're like this is justWordPress.

Speaker 4 (45:30):
This is just open source software.
That's the same for the for thephone service, business phone
service, like that, all the onesyou mentioned and all of our
other competitors.
They that's what they do theylicense a product and slap
another UI on it and a logo andand then they have to wait for
that company to build the newfeatures or fix a bug.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 4 (45:50):
Tough luck, you're behold.
And then they say it's theguarantee 99.999% uptime, right?
That comes out to about eighthours of downtime a year.
By the way, like is that?
Are you okay with being downfor a day?

Speaker 2 (46:02):
Exactly.
But you look at 99.99 and yougo, oh wow, that's almost
perfect, right, but yeah, itcould be eight hours in one big
chunk, yeah exactly.
That's ridiculous.
Oh wow, that's awesome.
You were able to sit down anddo all this work as an ENTP.

Speaker 4 (46:18):
Yeah, I'm good.
I'm good at focusing.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
When I'm interested in something, then I really go
down the rabbit hole and I yeahhow many hours do you think
you've got into coding thisthing out and making all your
upgrades and doing everythingLike?
What kind of time do you thinkyou have?
Have you ever sat down andactually thought that through?

Speaker 4 (46:36):
Not no.
So there is actually aninteresting little app that
we've used a couple of timesthat creates this little
animation of your check-ins ofcode in GitHub.
So GitHub is where we put ourcode when we're done for the day
, and you can see over the years, little icons of the different

(46:58):
developers and how they likekind of patch little things into
a big web of like it's like agraphic.
It's very fascinating to watchand then you know, sped up in
time, it's very cool to watchand that one is fascinating
because then it really shows howmuch we've built like how many
different, how complex thesystem actually is that we don't
really think about in the data.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
Yeah, what's fun is to go back and tell people you
know because someday you'regoing to sell Tellzio and you're
going to, you know off you andyour wife go to an island
somewhere and you know you'regoing to have your jet and your
helicopter, but you never know.
But the fun thing is is goingback and trying to figure out
how many hours you got in andthen how much you made off of it
and what you've made off itover the years, and then figure
out how much you made an hourand then compare that to what

(47:40):
you could have made it.
What you could have made it ajob Like.
It's like oh, if I worked aregular job this whole time I
would have made, you know, 80bucks an hour or something.
I mean, you're an engineer, soyeah, you probably would have
made good money, Uh, but instead, you went to the entrepreneur.

Speaker 4 (47:53):
That's not something I wanted to think about, because
there's.
I mean, I, I, I literallyworked 15, 16 hours a day, seven
days a week, and I've done itfor 10 years.
So, uh, it's a lot of time, forsure, um, but I like doing it
and I like being in control.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
It doesn't feel like work?
No, it doesn't at all.
Not at all, and it's wild.
You can go to the store whenyou want.
You can pick up something forthe kids if you need to.
You know you can.
You can take an hour and take abreak.
Uh, you know you, you are incontrol, but you're working
probably twice as much as youwould if you had a regular job,
but it just doesn't feel likethe ones who are willing to work

(48:29):
80 hours a week to avoidworking 40 hours a week, right.
For someone else.
That's right.

Speaker 4 (48:34):
Yeah, exactly, and and and I think if you really
think about it, it's, it'sreally uh I'm putting a little
bit too extreme now, but it'skind of what uh, prison is all
about.
Taking away is your ability tobe in control, so I would do
really bad in prison, you knowit's.
It's uh the fact that uh, likeyou say, I can, I can go all do
all these things.

(48:54):
I don't go do all these things,but I can.
It's more about the uh.
You know, having that uh in inthe back of your head, that you
can always.
You know you, you can like.
For example, this past weekendI actually went to Vegas to hang
out with small friends and Istayed there on Monday and
Tuesday.
That's the first two days I'vehad off for at least a few years
.
Whoa, um, and, and you know,but I could, I could just do

(49:17):
that, you know, and I didn'thave to to tell anyone.

Speaker 3 (49:20):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (49:22):
How do you?

Speaker 3 (49:22):
how do your European friends handle the workload,
your work, your workload?
Because to me I always, Ialways think of.
Every time I'm in Florida, Isee guys from Scotland, or
they're always from GreatBritain, and they are like on
their third week of vacation.
They're like oh yeah, we'vebeen here since Tuesday.
Oh, like three days ago.
No, no, no, I'm sorry, threeTuesdays ago.

Speaker 4 (49:42):
Yeah, exactly, I mean Denmark has uh, I think there's
five days mandatory vacation offive, five weeks of mandatory
vacation a year.
What?
My dad, now that he's almostretired, he's has seven weeks of
vacation paid.
It's crazy, yeah, wow.

Speaker 3 (49:56):
Why would you even retire Like you like?

Speaker 2 (49:58):
I know you got seven weeks.

Speaker 3 (49:59):
You've got seven weeks off.
Well, like, oh you can.
You can like golf so much or goout on a boat so much.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
I know you're gonna want to know what he's doing.
That's awesome.
That's almost once a month.
I mean that's half a year.

Speaker 4 (50:09):
Well, he comes over here all the time to hang out
with his grandchildren.
Now They'll be here like threeor four times a year.

Speaker 2 (50:15):
Wow, wow, what's great.
He has that freedom too.
That's great.
So how do people reach out?
Like how do people get a holdof you, peter, like if
somebody's interested in takinga look at your deal, um, you
know they want to dig into it alittle bit, check out the
financials and all that stuff.
You know how do they get a holdof you to take a look at this?

Speaker 4 (50:33):
So be personally petersrotacom.
There's really not much on thatwebsite.
It's really just my name andthen there's a bunch of links to
all my social media and myemail address.
Everything is there.
So, petersrotacom, that's ifyou want to reach out and please
do I love when people do that,um and um if you want to check
out, tell you, go to T L Z I Oand tells you, uh, and click on

(50:57):
the trials button.
There's a free trial and try itout.
And I really want to encourageyou to do that, because we have
a crazy conversion rate forpeople who actually signed up
for trial.
Uh, because it's fun, itactually works.
So people are very impressedonce they are actually in there
and tried out.
So please go do that.

Speaker 2 (51:12):
Cool man.
Well, uh, peter, thanks a lotfor being on the show.
You've been great man and uh,yeah, good luck with everything.

Speaker 4 (51:17):
Thank you so much, guys.
It was fun.
Have a great day.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
You too.
Thanks for joining us on thisweek's episode of side hustle
city.
Well, you've heard from ourguests.
Now let's hear from you.
Join our community on Facebook,side hustle city.
It's a group where people shareideas, share their
inspirational stories andmotivate each other to be
successful and turn their sidehustle into their main hustle.
We'll see you there and we'llsee you next week on the show.

(51:43):
Thank you.