You're ROBBING Your Business Without Realizing It

Sean Weisbrot: Sam Sherman is the co-founder of Socio Media, a direct response digital marketing agency that manages over a hundred million dollars a year in ad spend and. In this episode, we talked about running a company Parenthood, why he wanted to be an entrepreneur, some of the things he strives for in being a business owner and so much more. This is very much a personal conversation as well as a professional one. I know you're going to like it if you enjoy hearing more about the personal lives of the people that I interview. Let's get to it. Of all of the things that are taking your time. These days between your family and your business and your friends and the health conditions you're going through, what do you think is the hardest thing to balance or to to manage of them all?

Sam Sherman: Wow. I'd say that the family aspect for sure. Um, when I really launched my entrepreneurial journey, I was dating a girl at the time who happens to now be my wife. Um, but that was really the full commitment was. We were boyfriend girlfriend, both living in separate apartments in New York City. And uh, you know, fast forward seven years later, now we're married, we have a child. And I think the balance really between making sure that I can, of course be present with my family, um, in the best way possible, of course, but then. You know, naturally still having to run a business. And what I, what I appreciate too is having a business partner that I can kind of lean on and also, uh, be able to leverage Owen as a resource. Uh, and I guess really that sounding board. Um, he's a, he's a motivator for myself. If I didn't have him, I don't know if I would be. Working my eight 30 to six o'clock every day as, as I have been as committed to doing. Um, just because we're, we're in it together in a sense. But let's go back to just your original question. The, the balance is definitely making sure I can be as present as I can with my family too.

Sean Weisbrot: What made you wanna be an entrepreneur? Because when I was younger and I, I said I have no interest in that. And then I finally got involved in it, and it's been 10 years since I started. I look back on it and I go, why would anyone ever wanna do this? And when people ask me Should I do it, I'm like, you probably shouldn't. What, what is it that made you wanna be an entrepreneur and why do you continue to to be an entrepreneur?

Sam Sherman: Yeah, I mean, if you ask me that question right now, I'll absolutely support you in doing it. But I will say it is getting harder and harder. Um, so why I really. I always had a passion of entrepreneurship in general. Uh, my grandfather, he had started his own, uh, furniture store way, way back in the day. Um, while I was too young to really understand the ins and outs of how that business operated, I do know that it was very much a sense of pride for him as he was older. Um, already retired, had sold his business, and, uh. What really resonated with me in the conversations that we did have together was just, uh, his commitment towards the people that worked for him. And, um, what he was most proud of at the time was really having an incredible health insurance package for them. Which again, that's perks have very much evolved, uh, at this point. But, uh, to think back in like the sixties and seventies to have. Really top of the line type of health insurance package that was fully included for all of his employees. That, that always has resonated with me. Um, but yeah, I've always had that entrepreneurial spark. Never did I think it'd be getting into digital marketing is my lane. Um, but it's just something that really stuck with me in my college education and I realized, you know, I'm actually pretty good at this. Use this as a. Build something for people and and be more of a people-centric type of type of business.

Sean Weisbrot: You said that you admired him for being able to have a business that could afford to give all of the employees healthcare. Obviously, the way in which businesses done and the way in which businesses take care of their employees has changed. What is something that you strive to be able to provide to your team, and if you aren't able to yet, what is it that you hope to be able to provide to them in the future?

Sam Sherman: That's a great question. So that healthcare piece has always been kind of a, a focal point, even for when I first was envisioning having employees. So to date, we do offer completely free health in medical health insurance to our team. Um, and it's a really good plan. It's a zero deductible plan. We also have a second option if you're, it's a zero deductible for everybody across the country, but it, it's most fruitful for really the people in New York City 'cause there's such access to, uh, incredible hospitals here. But we do have a second plan that has a little bit of a higher deductible that's still, uh, is a really nice plan. But yeah, I mean, I think as a business we're spending around 1200 bucks a month per employee. Um, just purely for health insurance, and I never in a million years do I anticipate that ever, well, the premiums are going up small percentage wise every year, but, uh, never do I see us not being able to offer that as a perk. That's like from a foundational sense where we, I've always stood. Um, I've also just maybe from past companies have fallen into this. Well, we've been in past companies before where they take away different perks and um, really that's for many reasons. But ultimately as I've come to learn, it's usually because of a finance reason. Um, for us, very, very cognizant of it's much easier to add on as opposed to pull back. So, um, when we first started, you know, there were some things that we didn't offer, but as we've grown, while it hurts our margin. Financially, we just think as the people have spoken and they've asked for these different resources that we can be there to support them on that too. Um, so yeah, I don't know. Foundationally, it's always been health insurance, but we're really trying to build a business model that doesn't necessarily attract anything either.

Sean Weisbrot: When I was running my software company, I really wanted to be able to provide for the team the ability to upgrade their tech. Like a text type, like, oh, your laptop broke, or, you know, you need a new graphics card to be able to do this design work. All right, cool. We got it. Um, we weren't able to provide that. It was something that I really wanted to be able to do. Another thing I wanted to do was to invest in their growth. So if they said, Hey, there's this. You know, certification that I wanna take, or there's this, um, continuing education credit, or there's this conference that's gonna teach me how to use this new tool. Um, I wanted to be able to go, yeah, no problem. I mean, obviously it wouldn't be me, it would be the, you know, my COO who would be managing the budget, uh, the budget on a daily basis or the CFO, whatever, to be able to say, yeah, we've got it. Um, and that was really, really important for me to be able to do because I had never been in a business before that did those things. And unfortunately weren't able to get to a point that we could do that, but it was something that I always aspired to. So I appreciate you wanting to offer the health insurance. Uh, I can imagine that it's expensive. Um, especially 'cause like my team was completely outside of the us I think we've talked about this before. Uh, and another call that wasn't, uh, recorded, but. It's definitely something that I think a lot of people should aspire to is look at not just how can my people make me money, but how can I make it so that they wanna stay? What can I do that's going to make their lives a little bit easier? Especially in a capitalist society like the US where a lot of people feel forgotten. Um, living in Europe I see a very different way. Where the people feel taken care of and that produces happier employees. It may not produce more efficient employees because a socialist mindset in that way, uh, produces people that could be a little lazy, to be fair, um, from, uh, firsthand observation and conversations I've had with business owners in Europe that also struggle with how difficult it is to lay someone off, uh, one's hired if they, you know, don't perform. But that's a different conversation. I'm curious if the providing of the health insurance has lowered your, uh, your, the rate at which people leave the company. You said you don't measure things, but I imagine you, you have to measure that in a way.

Sam Sherman: Hmm. Well, we, we do have a sense of, we don't have a perfect one-to-one, like how's our retention rate across the board? But I would say, um. Yeah. So the, the foundational thing is, like, that we've always held true to is we're a digital marketing agency. There's thousands of them out there. There's absolutely thousands. So, uh, the switching cost for an a brand working with an agency is very low. It's, it's easy. Um, the switching costs for an employee to an agency is, it's very low as well. It's, it's not a problem at all. So. With those thousands of agencies out there, everyone talks about their proprietary technology that might help with bidding algorithms. And you know, we've been hearing the same thing for the 12 years I've been in the business and it's still the case. So what gives, and, and my philosophy is kind of from the foundational sense is treat our employees right. They'll stay. That is something, as an agency that's like a churn and burn. Like there's thousands that are also just churn and burn and that you're getting a new account manager every six, realistically maybe 12 months. Um, and that's not who we are, who we are. We're here as a committed team that's very much emotionally invested into your brand. And to your point, Sean, I'd, I'd like to think that our retention is quite high. I mean, frankly, we have, uh, our one. Number one team member that's been with us since even before so became, came to fruition. He was working with me in my first business that I launched, so, which has been six and six and a half or so years now. Um, and yeah, our leaders in our company, uh, have been with us probably for about three years now, which being a business that's only been around for five years. We think is pretty good 'cause we were only maybe six or seven people for those first two. So, um, yeah, retention's really high and it's just that commitment towards building a really strong foundational workplace.

Sean Weisbrot: So there's a lot of different kinds of agencies and a lot of agencies never reach seven figures in revenue in a given year or in their lifetime before they fall apart. And there's a lot of different industries that one can focus on. You and I have both chosen to focus on e-commerce. I know why I did. The more time I spend in the industry, the more I feel like it's insanity at its best. Why did you choose to focus on serving e-commerce brands?

Sam Sherman: So we initially we're just here to serve direct response. So, um, if you're looking to produce an order, we're here to drive that at the most efficient cost. The same point if you're here to drive qualified leads. We very much are capable and do that for a bunch of different brands here too. So, um, why we've, while we do have some lead gen, more like B2B type of brands, we definitely, as you stated, lean more on the e-commerce side. Um, to date it's been a different, it's, it's a little bit more unique for us. To date, we've really just been referral based. Probably 95% of our brands we work with have been, um, referred to us from an old colleague, or they, we used to work with them at a different brand and they've jumped, shipped to another spot, so organically. A lot of the intros have come to e-commerce and mostly like fashion e-commerce, but it's really just because of our, unfortunately very small referral network that, uh, seems to lean on their end a little bit more on the fashion e-commerce side. So I think we kind of fell into it in a sense, but, um. I mean, we, I'm with you. There's agencies that are always like, oh, we're the CPG focused company, and they only work with brands and like, you know, food and beverage or whatever it may be. Um, that's something that we haven't really tried to silo ourselves in. And rather just say we're a performance media company that can drive qualified leads or, um, you know, efficient new customer acquisition goals for you. And just keep it a little bit more broad than, than just finding a niche. Do you

Sean Weisbrot: think that harms you in any way by, by targeting a broad audience?

Sam Sherman: There's, I mean, there's definite arguments to both sides of it. Um, early on in my entrepreneurial journey, I, um, I was leaning more towards finding a niche, um, just to help position myself as we are the go-to agency for this. Um. If I were to, you were talking about if, if you would start another company today, uh, would you and would you encourage others? Still would, but definitely if I were starting a company today, I probably would go niche. Uh, it's just, again, fortunate for us that a lot of our intros naturally occurred to be a bit across, across the gamut and, um. I think at this stage, given our company size, that it's kind of nice to be able to be broad. But, um, starting out, I, I'd probably be a little bit more niche next time.

Sean Weisbrot: When I started consulting, it was about six, seven months ago, and I told people, you know, I'm gonna reduce your cost in China, et cetera. So I started getting people going, oh, but what if I have a factory in Vietnam? What if I have a factory in India? What if I have a factory in Mexico? I can talk to them, but like I know China, right? So I feel like in that sense, my specialty is the uniqueness of my experience in China where nobody can find that elsewhere or it's hard to find. And so people come to me because of that, where. I, like I said, I could talk to any of them, but I'd rather deal with the Chinese because I know what I can get. I know what I'm doing when I talk to them. These other cultures I don't really know as well. Um, but then, yeah, you have certain things that you deal with when you're talking to brands that are buying from China, which are positives and negatives, which I don't wanna go into specifically. Um. So you said that you work with a lot of fashion brands. Do you find anything specific about working with them that, uh, no matter what you say, none of them will ever watch this, so you don't have to worry about the bad you're about No, I'm just kidding. So, yeah. Is what are the kind of the pros and cons of working with, uh, fashion brands?

Sam Sherman: Yeah, absolutely. So, and I'd almost argue it's for e-comm as a whole right now. Um. But speaking, you know, I guess specifically to, to fashion brands at this point, but five years ago where we as an agency were proud of was our advanced targeting, we were able to pinpoint specifically within meta different audiences that were trying to, uh, target, have unique, creative, tailored to them, catch them along the funnel as we hit them. Higher would just say, Hey, here's a little bit more about our brand. And then retarget them to actually get them to purchase. Uh, similar with Google, we would set up paid search campaigns and we'd have thousands of keywords that were very precise at the exact match level. We'd have 'em teared out, yada, yada, yada. Uh, that was five years ago. That's, that's not by any means how things are set up at this point. Uh, Facebook. Post iOS 14.5 and, um, for privacy concerns, kind of for broad is better in a simple, simple way. Um, you set up campaigns where you're targeting the entire country and optimizing towards conversions. Um, similar with Google, where you used to have pinpoint keywords. Now broad match does really, really well, so. What our value was back in the day isn't what it can be right now. And I think for e-comm brands, what we need is that more holistic strategy and approach of how does paid search, paid social, how does that fit into the whole decision process for a buyer? Um, and not so much around necessarily the advanced targeting setup, but rather now. What's the messaging and how are we, uh, tailoring our creative to speak to that? And I think, um, for E-com. It's, it's much more storytelling and branding now than it's ever been, uh, which,

Sean Weisbrot: hey, just gimme 10 seconds of your time. I really appreciate you listening to the episode so far, and I hope you're loving it. And if you are, I would love to ask you to subscribe to the channel because what we do is a lot of work. And every week we bring you a new guest and a new story, and what we do requires so much love. So that we can bring you something amazing and every week we're trying really hard to get better guests that have better stories and improve our ability to tell their stories. So your subscription lets the algorithm know that what we're doing is fantastic and no commitment. It's free to do. And if you don't like what we're doing later on, you can always unsubscribe. And either way, we would love a, like if you don't feel like subscribing at this time. Thank you very much and we'll take you back to the show Now.

Sam Sherman: It's different, but it's also fun. Like it actually puts the marketers in marketing, in the word marketing, um, and not just being that analytically driven person. So it's a nice challenge, but I'd say that's, that is the challenge that's, that's really occurring across the board right now.

Sean Weisbrot: So I work with someone who offers agency ad accounts through Meta, and he was talking about how, what he's seen with the clients that we have. Is that generally the AI kind of makes things a lot easier. The the AI that meta provides, that manages the ads is also now making it faster for you to, uh, make money and spend less in order to get to that point to kind of incentivize people to, to try and gets started and to scale. Do you notice anything in that regard?

Sam Sherman: Yeah, if I'm, um. If I'm kind of picking up what your, your colleague might be saying, uh, he might be referring to Advantage plus campaigns, which is like, uh, and keep me honest here if I'm, if I'm way off, but as I describe it, it's, you basically give meta all of your assets, a bunch of different types of, uh, messaging that you want to incorporate in the ad and Meta's algorithm will basically, and it's just pure broad targeting. So meta will. Take of your five options for me, messaging your five options of ads. We'll bring it all together and target the right consumer across the board. There's also a, a lever within there to say, okay, of this campaign, I want to target 90% towards net new people that have never seen my brand before. And the 10% could be retargeting People have. I've seen my ad but have never converted. Is that, that that's like a relatively newish technology in meta that's, you know, we're concerned is coming for a lunch, but I have some kind of data and analysis behind it as

Sean Weisbrot: well. What you explain just now is way deeper than anything I understand about how ads work. I'm literally just selling people on the service and he, he provides the service. Um, I've tried several times to advertise. In my lifetime online, and I've never sold a single product or service once. So I leave that to people that know what they're doing. And actually, you were saying your business is referral? My business is referral. It's, it's called outreach and referral because, 'cause I don't understand ads, so I just like the human connection makes it a lot easier. Then again, there is a lot of misfires, there's a lot of people who are like, oh yeah, that sounds great. Let's work together. And then they just like never get back to you. Um, and there's other people are like, yeah, that sounds great. Let's work together. And they're like, actively giving you clients. Um, but with, that's cool. But ads also, they sound great because, you know, if I can get an ad and that ad is just sending me clients, then I don't have to give anyone a commission. Facebook, I'm, I'm giving Facebook the commission. Well, you're paid. Right, you're paying that. But, but the difference is when I have someone giving me a referral, every time money comes in, I have to then go and say, Hey, there's money for you. And then I've gotta send it to them. And then I've gotta remember, you know, if I've got a network of 20 referrals, which I, I don't, it's not that sophisticated now, but, you know, imagine it grows like that, then I've gotta manage, you know, several dozen people and their commissions. And so it actually becomes a lot of admin and compliance just to make sure that I'm paying the right people, the right amount at the right time. Where if I'm just paying for ads. I'm just paying meta once for that client and that client can pay a monthly fee over and over and over again, so,

Sam Sherman: right. Well it's, and it's also the balance between the quality of those leads too, though, right? So, and, and, and I mean, as you're describing it, you're right, like theoretically you're using Meta as just your one driver and you only have to really make sure you're up to date and. Spent like in. Finances with one source as opposed to five different referral sort agreements that you have and how Yeah. That, that just sounds like you said, like an nightmare. I, I am signing agreements

Sean Weisbrot: with, with all of them, and you know, I've got it in a spreadsheet of who's, who's referring to me and how much they're being paid and who, which clients they're referring. Yeah. So I have multiple spreadsheets I'm managing. It doesn't sound, it may sound worse than it is, but

Sam Sherman: Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: Like it can become complicated over time

Sam Sherman: now. Yeah. And then you're managing. Okay, so this is only first year of management, so after, not even, no. What

Sean Weisbrot: I, the relationships that I've built with people is that if money comes in, I get a commission for the life of the relationship. And if someone refers, then they're gonna get a commission for the life of all the, the relationship when I'm getting a commission.

Sam Sherman: Well, that makes that part easier. Um. But I'm with you though. I mean the, the kicker with metas, uh, especially with lead gen stuff sometimes, you know, I'm getting, so you mentioned that you don't have the, you know, understanding of all the ins and outs of this, this wonderful marketing stuff that I probably go down these rabbit holes on. Um, I, so that's where like I foundationally came from and having. My past work experience, but I'm more naturally, as you know, a, a co-founder in a, in a company now very much out of the weeds and actually connecting more with humans and, uh, understanding business problems and how we can help support them, or more importantly, my responsibilities more within our team and making sure that we can best service, um, and be the best. Employer for our company. But it, I, I catch myself many times falling down into the technical trap of like, here's how you do things. 'cause it's just naturally where I've, where I've kind of come from. Um, I always joke with my, my business coach that because we're always working on. How I can remove myself from some of these day-to-day tasks. And I always joke that I'm like Ed Shean with his guitar. I need to always hold my guitar and I can't get away from the microphone and the guitar. I just, and go perform. Like I need to get back to what I'm used to and just play my guitar of, of running paid media. Um, so that's, that's a personal challenge in myself that I've really been working on for most notably the past year or two. It's

Sean Weisbrot: important at that

Sam Sherman: size, but anyway. It is, well, it's, it's, uh, it's a necessity. Um, and I'm, I'm, I have the awareness of that, but it's more the matter of like, um, not being that person that people can just turn to for the answer. And it, it. Happy for them to turn to me, but I'm instead flipping it to allow them to help find that answer themselves and develop leaders that way.

Sean Weisbrot: It's a, it's a very simple thing. People don't realize it go, what's the answer? I don't know. You tell me what the answer is. Oh, I didn't think about like, doing the research and figuring it out for myself.

Sam Sherman: And they, I mean, I've been out the game a little bit longer, like, sure, I'm still running one paid search account, but like our team knows better than me. Like they're, they're in it every single day. So I definitely don't know all the answers and they're gonna. Everyone here can teach me something new every single day. So just being present to allowing them to feel comfortable to do that, uh, is important.

Sean Weisbrot: I feel like that was something beneficial for my software company because people would come to me for advice and I'm like, I don't know about product. I don't know about tech. I don't know about marketing. Like I'm a sales guy. Get me a product that works based on my vision and I'll sell the hell out of it. Right, but I don't need any SOPs for sales. It's human relationships. Like I can do it, it's easy, but they're like, yeah, but it's your vision. So we need to understand like, what do you want the product to do? How do you want it to work? What do you, you know, what pages do you want on the, on the app? Like, you know, you need to give us the. The ui, ux, you need to give us the feature specifications you need to, you know, and I was like, I don't know about any of that stuff. They're like, yeah, well, do you have to do it? I was like, fine, I'll do it. But like, I'm not the right person to be doing it because I don't have experience. And I made a huge mess of it because I didn't know what I was doing and I had to learn on the job, but I already had people that I was employing and paying and relying on me, but I wasn't the right person to be doing it. So I, I feel like in one way it's like, really, it, it's maybe bad. To start a business if you don't understand what you're doing. But it's also good because if you can find the right people, then you'll have the shortest period of being in the business where like then you could just easily walk away because you literally don't know what you're doing. So people won't rely on you for the answers.

Sam Sherman: Oh, I'm with you. Yeah, see, I'm the opposite where, uh, everything that we do here outside of Performance Creative now, which is a relatively new division, but everything that we do here, I personally. Have been able to do at an expert level. Now we're talking six, seven years ago. But, um, it's a pro and con, you kind of know the ins and outs that go into the work and you can set realistic expectations with the team, but at the same token, you can get caught up in getting into the, the weeds very easily. Um, there's actually a book that, uh, was really. From my particular scenario, um, was really good for me. Called, uh, it's from Mike Mcal. It's called. I know know, he is, I read Profit First. Uh, yeah, that was a great book as well. We actually run our business still on that profit. I think it's great because

Sean Weisbrot: so many business owners run themselves into the ground and at the end of it, they have nothing to show for it because they kept putting a hundred percent back into the damn business.

Sam Sherman: Take 1% at At the minimum? Yeah. Well something

Sean Weisbrot: start

Sam Sherman: with 1%

Sean Weisbrot: when the business starts and then work it up so that you're, you know, probably taking 50%, hopefully.

Sam Sherman: Oof.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, I'd love, actually, I came across a number of younger business owners that were doing 20, 30, 40 KA month, and they had like maybe one or two team members. And I was like, okay, you know, how much cash do you have? None. Why do you have no cash? You're, you have no overhead. Well, you know, I like to. I like to buy things. That's not your money. That's the business's money. You're stealing from your business. Stealing from my business. How dare you. Sorry. It's not your money. That's the, it belongs to the business. If you decide to give yourself some profit, fine, but if you're not allocating that into hiring more people or doing more marketing, then you're failing your business. They just, they don't comprehend like what it means to reinvest profit. There was very,

Sam Sherman: very early on in my entrepreneurial journey, um, I was basically advised that there's like two different kinds of businesses. There's the lifestyle business where, you know, you might have that small shop, but you can live a great lavish life. You make, you know, really great profit and, um. You're able to explore the world and do all that fun stuff. Then there's the, I don't need the other business. I don't know, it was either lifestyle or whatever the next kind of like, maybe like a clockwork type of, yeah. And with that one, you know, it's a grind. It's a roller coaster. You are in the mindset of hiring. Um, you're financially maybe not gonna necessarily feel it for the first couple years. Uh. But the, the mindset is for you to be able to remove yourself, be able to take that vacation and not have to be hooked on your phone to make sure that, you know, as the Internet's never sleeping, that nothing comes up. And, um, I went that route of being the non lifestyle business. And, um, yeah, I mean it's, it's, it was a decision that had to. Be made, but at the same point, Sean, like, yeah, when we were, or when I was making like 20, 30 KA month, and I, I'd only been doing it for less than a year, I'm like, wow, this is pretty, this is pretty sick. I could continue doing it this way. Or, um, there was even more higher figures that I was earning. And, but instead it's like, no, like I'm sticking to the, the plan and my mindset genuinely was always, like I said with my grandfather, like. Building that great, amazing workplace for, for others to enjoy. But it is an enticing situation. And now, you know, six, five, well seven years into my whole entrepreneurial journey, five years with, so, um, I'm happy with how it's where we've gotten to thus far, but it's a lot of big decisions. Always, but those, that first year was like, gets pretty lonely. I understand. Decision fatigue.

Sean Weisbrot: I did it for four and a half years and, and we never even had a chance to launch, so we never had any revenue.

Sam Sherman: Ugh. Yeah,

Sean Weisbrot: that's, that's what you get. Building a software company that's meant to raise millions upon millions of dollars. My only successful business before it was a consulting business, and the only successful business after that is a consulting business. So I've learned my lesson, right? I'm sticking to consulting service. I don't have to worry about. Yeah. Yeah. And you're good at it. So that's, I love relationships. That helps too. I love helping people solve their problems in a way that also allows me to make money where, you know, the client doesn't pay me anything. So they're happy to listen to my advice 'cause I'm gonna tell them what's gonna be best for them. And then, you know, if they work with my partners, great. If they don't, okay, next. No big deal. Yeah, so I love it. I like not having to worry about does an investor think this is a good idea? You know, I, I tried that. I, I changed my business. Yeah. Once or twice, because the investors don't think it's the right time to invest in this. Sorry. It's like, yeah. Yeah. That's tough. The market wins are shifting. Yeah. Investors are scared. They don't want to invest money right now. Come back in a year or two. My business will be dead in a year or two. Thanks. I'm back with another idea. In a year or two maybe we'll be ready for it then. Yeah. I, yeah. I try to, yeah. That's ugly. Tell people if they're gonna start a business, they're best off doing something that doesn't require other people's money, even though people love other people's money. 'cause it's free. Yeah. Then you, you're

Sam Sherman: tied to there. Uh, service businesses. Um, not like I, I I don't have any experience in, in technology companies or SaaS in general. Um, in terms of actually launching one, but I'm with you. The, the dependency, the. I hate owing people money, credit cards. Not like I just can't owe people money, let alone having to operate a business every day. Knowing that pressure of not just myself and our team, but also fulfilling on some of these different investors and the, the pressure that they might bring without necessarily understanding the pic, the, the, the real.

Sean Weisbrot: I didn't really feel pressure to perform from my investors. I gave myself pressure because I wanted the damn thing to launch. I wanted to prove to myself that I could have a, a successful business in a different vertical and a different style than the last one. It was something that I felt I needed to do to, to show myself that I was. Be because in the consulting it was for blockchain, so I took advantage of the opportunity and the time period and the fact that I was one of the only Mandarin speaking foreigners in China. 'cause a lot of my clients were Chinese who couldn't speak English. And so I said, maybe it's a fluke. Maybe I didn't deserve this success. Maybe I was, you know. Just doubting my myself and I said, if I can take some of this profit and I can start a new business with a different style in a different industry with the, you know, outside of China, maybe, you know, if I could be successful there, then like, yeah, I'm like, this is me. This is it. This is what I'm supposed to be doing. And that didn't happen. And I learned a lot about how to be a business owner. I learned a lot about how to not do business and how to not invest in companies and, and why I should never have investors, um, and why I should never have a team. And, and so I learned a tremendous mound from doing it. And so I, I hate to say I look back on it fondly because it was an absolute mess, but I also have to feel like it's fond for me because I learned so much. About being a business owner in general. And I think that enabled me to be where I am now, which is doing what I should have never stopped doing. But you know, you have to go through those ups and downs to get there.

Sam Sherman: But maybe, right, and, and maybe you're, uh, like appreciation or, um. Just work at work ethic, like something must have changed. Maybe it changed based on your experience with, um, you know, that, that technology company as well.

Sean Weisbrot: I don't think my work ethic changed. I think I, yeah, I think after it fell apart, I didn't wanna work probably like six months to a year. I was like, I don't really feel like working anymore. I think I'm, I'm over this work thing. Um, yeah. The work ethic didn't change. Yeah. Which is probably natural. It took some time to kind of figure out what I wanna do and, and uh, how I wanna spend my time. But once I got that figured out, then it was a lot easier. Um, 'cause I realized as well that new flame in perspective, right? I, I realized I'm young enough that I have the energy to do something again, but I need to do it wise. Um. I, I thought that what I wanted was the, a VC funded company that would become worth billions. And yeah, it was a little too late, but I realized, nope, that's actually not what I want. I, I actually would get anxiety attacks worrying about. The loss of privacy. If I were to become successful and, and raise hundreds of millions of dollars or, or sell a company for billions or whatever, how dumb is that? It wasn't even real. And yet I was worried about it. Um, I, I, I don't think I sabotaged myself for that, but um, I definitely felt like it was unnecessary looking back. 'cause I always liked privacy. And yet I do a podcast.

Sam Sherman: Yeah. Yeah. Right. And as I'm committing myself to doing more, like, uh, just being a bigger face for socio, but I'm with you. That the, and potentially getting involved in like different sponsorships at conferences, but I'm, it's just not, um, I mean, it's at a much smaller scale than what you're describing of being able to, you know. Like a billion dollar company by any means. But it's, you know, throwing myself out there and, um, feeling like I have to perform at a certain level as opposed to just being naturally who I am sometimes, uh, gives me a bit of anxiety, but I definitely don't expect that I'll, I'll ever make any news tabloids for, for my work. But

Sean Weisbrot: the funny thing is, yeah,

Sam Sherman: I feel for those people though, I really, I mean, I know. The, the artists and the singers out there that were a kid in that spotlight that have never like a Justin Timber. I know we're jumping into a different rabbit hole, but like Justin Timberlake being a kid and then still having all of the, the cameras at him for his entire existence on this planet is like, gosh, that's, it's not something I would ever wanna sign up for. And if I fell into that scenario. How many questions would I have in my head of how do I get out of this? There's

Sean Weisbrot: not many answers. You could

Sam Sherman: fake your death, but, right. Have there been a couple of those? We don't know. Yeah. You, you talking about Tupac?

Sean Weisbrot: We, we know. So what do you think is something important people should. Take away from your experience as a business owner.

Sam Sherman: So when I first started, um, I had this mindset of like, I gotta do it myself. Like I am gonna build a campaign about my business and it's gonna drive leads and I'm gonna qualify those leads. And it is just completely, everything would be net new. Um, and I was scared to like, quote unquote waste others' time with questions I might have around entrepreneurship and, um, just like not trying to be a burden for others. I always felt like when I spoke with others, you know, they would sometimes offer a favor and then that would never come through. And in my mind I'm like. I just, you know, that it felt like a little bit deflating in a sense, and I just wanted to do it on my own. Um, those, those people that I spoke like, that's a small sample size that I actually realistically spoke to, to, to look for some help. And I think what I learned fortunately, pretty quickly, and as I described, like our business is very heavily referral based, is it is. Not only important, but it's very fruitful to turn to others and ask for their support and for their help. Not necessarily from just referring business, but rather like how you can most effectively operate your business and seeking mentorship with that as well. Um, it's a while it's a very lonely island when you go down that entrepreneur path. I do think that there's a bit of a. Like fraternity, if you will, of people that are here to really offer support and, uh, be a sounding board for you. That I'm fortunate that it didn't take me that long to find, but I, I do think that that is just a tremendous, um, necessity, uh, when starting your business. So I guess the biggest learning is don't, don't go out on your own and think that you have to do it on your own, and that's how you're self made. Like no, like leverage your resources. It's the old not. What you know, it's who you know, like, uh, can take advantage of that.