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Well, you know, one of my heroes

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is the author Seth Godin.

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One of his phrases,

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he always says is that a hesitant

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trapeze artist is a dead trapeze artist.

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You know that you can't

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traverse the gap in two jumps.

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You have to do it in one big jump,

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or else you're dead. Right?

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Yeah.

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And so I've always

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taken that to heart, that, you know what?

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If you're gonna go for it,

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you just gotta go all the way.

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Nerdpreneur. You know, I love my work.

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Life's a game,

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so I'ma take my turn.

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Nerds deserve to put their passion first.

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Let em rap averse so they can all be heard.

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Yeah, my nerdy passion basically

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is drawing correct.

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I'm a breeder of tarantulas,

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importing tarantulas and some other critters.

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I am a harpist.

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I do mainly celtic harp,

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video game songs,

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songs from nerdy tv shows.

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Obviously, I'm big on Star Trek.

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It is creature design. Fantastical

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biological creations out of watercolor.

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We are dice retailers.

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Nerdpreneur. You know, I love my work.

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Life's a game,

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so I'm gonna take my turn.

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Nerds deserve to put their passion first,

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so let em rap a first so they can all be heard.

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Welcome to Nerdpreneur,

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where we have fun

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conversations with people making

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money with their nerdy passion. As always,

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I am joined by my co host, Frankenhein.

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Hello.

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And today we have a very special guest.

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His name is Tony,

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and he's the founder

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of a company called Hero within.

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Welcome to the show, Tony.

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Hey, guys, thanks for having me.

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Excited to have you on the show.

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I'm excited to be here.

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Yeah, yeah. Well, Tony,

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what is your nerdy passion?

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Man? I mean, I got a lot, and I mean,

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ever since I was little,

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I mean, Marvel, DC, Star wars, but I gotta say,

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my tried and true from,

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from when I

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was a little boy to even today, Star Trek.

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Ooh, yes.

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Yes.

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You're in the right

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crowd for that. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Now, for,

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for people who don't know hero within,

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we're kind of burying the lead.

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We know you're a Star Trek nerd,

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but what is your nerdy passion business?

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And what is hero within?

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Well, here within, like it,

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like the title implies,

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it's the idea of unleashing

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the hero that's in all of us. And, you know,

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we started back in 2016,

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and it's basically a collection of clothing

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that allows you to express your fandom,

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not just at a con or

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not just when you're with your buddies,

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but maybe when you're at work or socially

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when you're out with other friends, you know,

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whatever the

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situation may call for, but, you know,

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being able to express

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your fandom in all circumstances,

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not just in your nerdy environment, you.

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So you design and create clothing like

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nerd wear in some way, right? Yeah, but, like,

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accurate depictions of it,

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because we met you at actually,

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Emerald City Comic Con.

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That's where we originally connected.

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And Frank was trying on some,

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some of your, your clothing, specifically

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the Star Trek clothing, by the way, too.

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Yeah. I was really impressed with the strange

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new worlds jacket. It's. Oh, right, yeah,

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it looks very much, because

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I had just been rewatching it with my partner.

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I had already seen the show, and,

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and I was thinking I had just rewatched

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the episode where they go down

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to the planet and they're on an away team.

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And I was like, those

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jackets look cool for an await team. Like,

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that's really good.

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And then we were at Emerald City Comic Con,

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and I saw your display,

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and I was like, oh, my God,

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this is really neat.

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And I remember sending

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a picture of it to my partner, and she's like,

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you should get it.

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And I was like, whoa, wait, really? Like,

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I just thought this looked cool.

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And that's been kind of the vibe, and

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that's also what I've seen your brand is about,

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is for the geeky, for the sophisticated.

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That's been a part of the hero within slogan.

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So we do have definitely the more cosplay,

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more costume sort of options, but

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then we also have more subtle, sophisticated,

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more just, you know, your, your bomber jackets,

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tactical jackets, denim jackets,

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that sort of thing that.

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So whatever you're sort of, you know,

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whatever you're sort of into,

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we kind of get you covered.

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Yeah. You have way more

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than just Star Trek wear, too,

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because you're licensed

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to create stuff for DC Comics, Marvel.

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I think you had,

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you mentioned on your website Doctor who.

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Is that true too? Yeah, yeah. And Godzilla.

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Yeah.

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What does Godzilla wear? Like, what is that?

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Well, like Godzilla. He's not so subtle.

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Or he or she or they,

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or whatever Godzilla is.

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And so our Godzilla stuff is pretty bold.

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A lot of asian streetwear influence,

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and so a lot of big, big,

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bold prints and whatnot.

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Cool, cool. Very cool.

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So how did you get into this?

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Were you always into fashion,

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or was this something

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that emerged out of the nerd dom?

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Yeah, it definitely emerged

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out of the nerd Dom. I, you know,

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it's interesting because we're about to.

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We're about to head into San Diego Comic Con.

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And it's great that I met you guys at a con

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because comic cons have been like a really

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kind of at the DNA of here within.

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Comic cons have always been a part of that,

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especially San Diego Comic Con.

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And so basically how

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it all started was years ago,

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probably back in, you know,

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I've been like a longtime Comic Con fan going

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since the mid two thousands, like 2005, six,

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something like that.

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Going to San Diego, going to,

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that's how a bunch of

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other shows are popping up. So just, you know,

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traveling to a lot of shows like you guys,

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I was podcasting and blogging

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and doing that whole thing and, and then

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I started getting into some cosplay. But I, but

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it was a kind of a very niche cosplay. It was,

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if you're aware or if any listeners

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are aware of San Diego Comic Con,

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one thing that's a big part of it is you

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get these big gigantic vinyl bags, you know,

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that have sponsorship on them.

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Typically it's Warner Brothers.

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And so, you know,

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it'd be like the flash or it'll

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be wonder Woman or whatever it is.

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So these big bags that are like, you know,

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like three foot by three foot.

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So they're like, they're big, right?

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So San Diego Comic Con is kind of

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known for these big vinyl bags and, you know,

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you can get a,

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usually there's like a

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dozen different options each year.

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And so this kind of started back in, like,

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I don't know,

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maybe 2008 or nine or something like

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that when Comic Con started blowing up.

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So just kind of out

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of a whim and out of kind of fun.

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I've always loved clothing and fashion.

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I decided to take some of these

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bags and make costumes out of them. So I,

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so I basically, like, took a,

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took a bunch of bags that, again, had all

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this different branding, Green Arrow, you know,

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all these just different brandings on them.

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And I made a blazer out of it.

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So just imagine a regular blazer,

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but just having all this vinyl

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Comic Con branding all over it.

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So this was like back in

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maybe 2011 or something like that. And it was,

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I basically went as,

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because I'm a fan of Doctor who as well.

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I went as the 11th Doctor, Matt Smith,

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eleven Doctor with the bowtie

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and the sonic screwdriver and all that.

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But I just had this, like,

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very garish Comic Con Blazer bag thing.

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And so I wore that

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to one of the shows and it got, you know,

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got a really big response from it because

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if you are a fan of Comic Con, you just,

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you really recognize

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these bags right off the bat. And plus,

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it feels like you're wearing, I mean,

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you're basically

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wearing a giant plastic blazer. Right?

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Yeah.

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So, you know, a lot of fans love that,

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and I got a big

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kick out of wearing that. So I decided, well,

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next year I'm going to do the same thing.

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So once again,

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I was able to contact Warner Brothers

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and they sent me the bags ahead of time.

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And I was able to work on this time.

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I made a one. My,

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out of Star wars.

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My favorite Luke Skywalker

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look was out of return of the Jedi,

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his kind of all black with the fold

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over flap in the front and all that.

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So I made a Luke Skywalker version,

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but out of the, again,

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out of the vinyl bags.

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Yeah. So again, you know, big hits

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and all that and just love it. So again,

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I work now work on year three,

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and I was working on a Green Arrow costume.

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And I just was

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kind of like thinking to myself, man, like,

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this is fun and all,

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and it's good for laughs and for photos.

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People seem to really love

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all these brands that are on, you know,

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on these pieces because they

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kind of look like you look a little

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bit like you're a NASCAR meets cosplay.

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You have all these brands, right?

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So people love these brands.

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They love these brands and they love, like,

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fashion and clothing.

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And they sort of the merger of the two.

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How about this year,

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instead of coming

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up with some sort of, like, wacky costume,

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I come up with some sort of, like,

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clothing that you could actually,

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that has your branding on it,

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but you could wear every day more

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commonly than just at a convention.

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So I started at pivoted and I started

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working on a blazer that turned out to

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be a Superman blazer where it had like,

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sort of the silhouette of this,

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this s stitched in the back

271
00:10:14,770 --> 00:10:17,010
and then the inside had some, you know,

272
00:10:17,200 --> 00:10:19,790
branding as well and had some, like,

273
00:10:19,830 --> 00:10:21,290
subtle nods here and there.

274
00:10:21,710 --> 00:10:23,220
And, you know, I just kind of put

275
00:10:23,250 --> 00:10:25,760
on social media and on my blog, I said, hey,

276
00:10:25,950 --> 00:10:28,390
I decided instead of doing a costume,

277
00:10:28,560 --> 00:10:30,540
I made this Superman blazer.

278
00:10:30,700 --> 00:10:31,530
And I'm going to kind of

279
00:10:31,560 --> 00:10:33,080
show it off at San Diego this year.

280
00:10:33,130 --> 00:10:36,080
And if I see you and if you like it,

281
00:10:36,110 --> 00:10:37,680
let me know and maybe I could take

282
00:10:37,730 --> 00:10:40,150
this and turn it into something

283
00:10:40,240 --> 00:10:42,370
that I can offer to more people.

284
00:10:42,520 --> 00:10:44,250
So that year at Comic Con,

285
00:10:44,280 --> 00:10:45,720
and this is 2015,

286
00:10:45,910 --> 00:10:47,260
I just was walking around,

287
00:10:47,340 --> 00:10:48,740
talking to professionals, talking to,

288
00:10:48,780 --> 00:10:50,610
basically just hustling it, talking

289
00:10:50,640 --> 00:10:53,050
to every person I ran into and just said,

290
00:10:53,080 --> 00:10:54,360
what do you think about this blazer?

291
00:10:54,450 --> 00:10:55,870
If it was available on the market.

292
00:10:55,990 --> 00:10:57,000
Would you buy it?

293
00:10:57,130 --> 00:10:59,770
And so I just kind of used those five days

294
00:10:59,800 --> 00:11:02,020
I was there as sort of market research to

295
00:11:02,050 --> 00:11:05,650
just kind of see if people like it. You know,

296
00:11:05,660 --> 00:11:06,300
I didn't mention this,

297
00:11:06,330 --> 00:11:08,250
but I do have a design background.

298
00:11:09,350 --> 00:11:11,850
I graduated with a design degree.

299
00:11:11,900 --> 00:11:13,740
I was in marketing, communication

300
00:11:13,810 --> 00:11:15,460
design as art director for many years.

301
00:11:15,490 --> 00:11:19,730
And I've done mostly print and online designing

302
00:11:19,760 --> 00:11:21,260
and also done some interior designing,

303
00:11:21,290 --> 00:11:23,130
but really hardcore fashion designing.

304
00:11:23,160 --> 00:11:24,210
I've never really done that before.

305
00:11:24,280 --> 00:11:26,150
So it's a lot of, say,

306
00:11:26,190 --> 00:11:28,020
design principles and, you know,

307
00:11:28,050 --> 00:11:29,160
you just take something that's two d and

308
00:11:29,170 --> 00:11:31,250
turn it into three d and so on and so on.

309
00:11:31,400 --> 00:11:33,100
So that following year,

310
00:11:33,170 --> 00:11:36,530
I was once again,

311
00:11:36,580 --> 00:11:38,460
kind of at that point towards, like, well,

312
00:11:38,650 --> 00:11:40,660
that here with,

313
00:11:40,810 --> 00:11:41,580
at that time,

314
00:11:41,650 --> 00:11:42,970
I had already called it here within.

315
00:11:43,020 --> 00:11:45,780
I just felt like that name just Washington,

316
00:11:45,850 --> 00:11:46,540
it just sort of, like,

317
00:11:46,570 --> 00:11:49,380
came to me while I was designing that blazer,

318
00:11:49,570 --> 00:11:50,340
and I was talking

319
00:11:50,370 --> 00:11:52,860
to a design buddy of mine. I said, you know,

320
00:11:52,890 --> 00:11:53,820
like that it's,

321
00:11:53,870 --> 00:11:55,720
we're a few months away from Comic

322
00:11:55,760 --> 00:11:58,070
Con and how long I do with this.

323
00:11:58,100 --> 00:11:59,610
I have this idea of here within,

324
00:11:59,700 --> 00:12:02,300
and I've got this blazer. And, you know,

325
00:12:02,330 --> 00:12:03,820
I I would,

326
00:12:03,930 --> 00:12:05,020
I would love to see

327
00:12:05,050 --> 00:12:06,870
this really grow into something real.

328
00:12:06,940 --> 00:12:09,760
But, you know, I've got this full time job.

329
00:12:09,840 --> 00:12:11,600
I've got the mortgage,

330
00:12:11,640 --> 00:12:13,550
I got the family, I've got kids,

331
00:12:13,620 --> 00:12:15,190
and they're just like,

332
00:12:15,220 --> 00:12:16,220
I know this is a great idea,

333
00:12:16,230 --> 00:12:17,680
but there's just no way that I could

334
00:12:17,710 --> 00:12:20,910
really see this turn into reality. Well,

335
00:12:20,960 --> 00:12:22,680
you have to be careful when you say

336
00:12:22,750 --> 00:12:24,730
things like that out in the universe,

337
00:12:24,770 --> 00:12:25,790
because sometimes the universe

338
00:12:25,820 --> 00:12:27,430
listens because two months later,

339
00:12:27,460 --> 00:12:29,170
I got laid off from my job.

340
00:12:29,290 --> 00:12:31,670
Oh, wow, look at that. So, yeah,

341
00:12:32,410 --> 00:12:34,790
react that way, doesn't it? It's like, sorry,

342
00:12:34,820 --> 00:12:35,730
you want this?

343
00:12:35,770 --> 00:12:36,990
You're gonna do it now.

344
00:12:37,930 --> 00:12:40,050
So I was like, oh, crap, like,

345
00:12:40,090 --> 00:12:42,980
I have to seriously consider doing this now.

346
00:12:43,050 --> 00:12:45,050
So after some soul searching

347
00:12:45,100 --> 00:12:46,850
and some hard discussions with, you know,

348
00:12:46,900 --> 00:12:48,130
with myself

349
00:12:48,200 --> 00:12:50,100
and my wife and family, all that, I said,

350
00:12:50,130 --> 00:12:51,010
you know what?

351
00:12:51,200 --> 00:12:52,580
I think I'm going to try to do this.

352
00:12:52,610 --> 00:12:53,250
I think I'm going to.

353
00:12:53,280 --> 00:12:55,620
Even though I don't really have any, like,

354
00:12:55,730 --> 00:12:57,250
training in fashion,

355
00:12:57,440 --> 00:12:58,790
I've got friends that are,

356
00:12:58,870 --> 00:13:01,390
and I've got comic cons coming up,

357
00:13:01,430 --> 00:13:03,890
and I could launch something like this.

358
00:13:04,310 --> 00:13:08,060
So did you see a hole in the market too? Like,

359
00:13:08,090 --> 00:13:09,050
you obviously had a lot of

360
00:13:09,080 --> 00:13:10,350
people who are out there

361
00:13:10,430 --> 00:13:11,970
giving you the market research saying, oh,

362
00:13:11,980 --> 00:13:13,780
I love what you're doing, or paying attention.

363
00:13:13,870 --> 00:13:14,420
So you had some

364
00:13:14,430 --> 00:13:16,490
attention but what was there? Was there.

365
00:13:16,530 --> 00:13:17,630
Did you see, like,

366
00:13:17,740 --> 00:13:19,730
a lot of other people doing fashion,

367
00:13:19,770 --> 00:13:21,220
or was there nobody doing fashion?

368
00:13:21,270 --> 00:13:23,160
Yeah, at the time, there was nobody. You know,

369
00:13:23,230 --> 00:13:24,100
when I was in those,

370
00:13:24,150 --> 00:13:25,300
those couple years when I was

371
00:13:25,310 --> 00:13:27,430
in costume walking around the show,

372
00:13:27,730 --> 00:13:29,620
I really realized that, wow. Like,

373
00:13:29,790 --> 00:13:32,730
when it, you know, when it came to, like,

374
00:13:32,810 --> 00:13:33,910
expressing your fandom,

375
00:13:33,960 --> 00:13:35,280
it came down to

376
00:13:35,470 --> 00:13:37,330
black t shirts and hoodies. That's all.

377
00:13:37,450 --> 00:13:38,300
That's all it was,

378
00:13:38,390 --> 00:13:39,630
at least at that time.

379
00:13:39,800 --> 00:13:40,840
And so there wasn't

380
00:13:40,870 --> 00:13:43,450
a her universe. There was, like, you know, no,

381
00:13:43,490 --> 00:13:45,480
no other companies out there doing it.

382
00:13:45,630 --> 00:13:50,190
And so I was like, wow. Like, I really,

383
00:13:50,260 --> 00:13:51,590
if I wanted to,

384
00:13:52,050 --> 00:13:54,500
and if I back up a little bit during

385
00:13:54,550 --> 00:13:57,270
those two years I was doing cosplay.

386
00:13:57,400 --> 00:13:59,100
When I was outside of my costume,

387
00:13:59,150 --> 00:14:00,130
I also had, like,

388
00:14:00,170 --> 00:14:01,310
different types of

389
00:14:01,890 --> 00:14:04,510
dress shirts that I had. Like, I had, like,

390
00:14:04,540 --> 00:14:06,040
got all these patches. Like,

391
00:14:06,070 --> 00:14:07,650
I had a DC themed one,

392
00:14:07,690 --> 00:14:08,890
I had a Game of Thrones one.

393
00:14:08,930 --> 00:14:11,940
I had a marvel. Like, all this. Like, you know,

394
00:14:11,970 --> 00:14:13,170
I designed basically my

395
00:14:13,200 --> 00:14:16,230
own shirts because I was, during those years, I

396
00:14:16,230 --> 00:14:19,620
was searching for anything that was like this,

397
00:14:19,650 --> 00:14:21,600
and I couldn't find it anywhere. So,

398
00:14:21,690 --> 00:14:24,690
so during those years of, you know, doing,

399
00:14:24,800 --> 00:14:26,290
kind of talking to people, I was like, wow,

400
00:14:26,320 --> 00:14:28,330
there really isn't anything out there that

401
00:14:28,990 --> 00:14:31,060
is beyond your typical t shirts and hoodies.

402
00:14:31,090 --> 00:14:32,800
And I remember my wife telling me, I

403
00:14:32,810 --> 00:14:34,450
come back from these conventions, she's, like,

404
00:14:34,540 --> 00:14:37,060
looking at my stack and my closet of, like,

405
00:14:37,200 --> 00:14:38,230
black t shirts that's as

406
00:14:38,240 --> 00:14:40,860
tall as me. He's. He's like, enough, you know,

407
00:14:40,980 --> 00:14:42,440
enough of these, you know?

408
00:14:42,590 --> 00:14:44,450
And they don't even, back then,

409
00:14:44,480 --> 00:14:45,620
they weren't even making me color.

410
00:14:45,660 --> 00:14:46,860
They just literally were just, like,

411
00:14:46,900 --> 00:14:48,460
black and black hoodies.

412
00:14:48,500 --> 00:14:49,960
And then the big logo on the front,

413
00:14:49,990 --> 00:14:52,950
that was it. Right? So, so, yeah,

414
00:14:53,000 --> 00:14:54,110
so this is like.

415
00:14:54,200 --> 00:14:56,450
And this is in contrast to cosplayers, too.

416
00:14:56,480 --> 00:14:57,440
So I just wanted to distinguish,

417
00:14:57,470 --> 00:14:59,050
because just in case we have nerd dumbs

418
00:14:59,080 --> 00:15:01,780
from all over listening. So, like, in cosplay,

419
00:15:01,820 --> 00:15:03,180
this is people who are dressing

420
00:15:03,220 --> 00:15:04,710
up as their favorite characters,

421
00:15:04,760 --> 00:15:07,480
but that's not exactly what you're

422
00:15:07,550 --> 00:15:09,680
catering to. You're. You're catering, like,

423
00:15:09,760 --> 00:15:12,140
fashion stuff that is accented

424
00:15:12,190 --> 00:15:15,190
towards a nerddom, right? Versus, like,

425
00:15:15,220 --> 00:15:15,740
a blazer

426
00:15:15,770 --> 00:15:18,900
with a Superman thing on it, versus, like,

427
00:15:18,990 --> 00:15:21,610
trying to dress like Superman, which is,

428
00:15:21,740 --> 00:15:23,510
which is often, like, homemade. Like that.

429
00:15:23,540 --> 00:15:25,050
That's what people do is they make

430
00:15:25,060 --> 00:15:26,810
their own stuff with cosplay and this.

431
00:15:26,860 --> 00:15:27,420
And your stuff

432
00:15:27,450 --> 00:15:29,170
is not targeting that. You're like,

433
00:15:29,260 --> 00:15:31,400
you were going a different direction, right?

434
00:15:31,520 --> 00:15:33,790
Yeah, that's correct. So, so you know,

435
00:15:33,820 --> 00:15:34,320
this is like,

436
00:15:34,360 --> 00:15:35,850
so this is beginning of 2016,

437
00:15:35,940 --> 00:15:38,530
and this probably January,

438
00:15:38,600 --> 00:15:39,390
February or so,

439
00:15:39,470 --> 00:15:43,820
and Comic Con was in July. And I, you know,

440
00:15:43,850 --> 00:15:46,450
DC is one of my first, sort of,

441
00:15:47,470 --> 00:15:48,420
along with Star Trek,

442
00:15:48,450 --> 00:15:50,430
was one of my early sort of loves.

443
00:15:50,590 --> 00:15:51,640
And I thought, you know what?

444
00:15:51,650 --> 00:15:53,280
I made this Superman blazer.

445
00:15:53,330 --> 00:15:55,860
And I wonder if I can try to

446
00:15:55,890 --> 00:15:57,930
figure out how to make Batman

447
00:15:57,980 --> 00:15:59,930
and Wonder Woman and all this other stuff,

448
00:16:01,590 --> 00:16:03,410
but I'd love to attempt

449
00:16:03,440 --> 00:16:05,830
to get the license for that. And so

450
00:16:07,770 --> 00:16:10,230
it's funny looking back now, that's whatever,

451
00:16:10,280 --> 00:16:11,390
seven or eight years,

452
00:16:11,810 --> 00:16:13,730
because you don't know what you don't know.

453
00:16:13,810 --> 00:16:15,020
And I just thought to myself, you know what?

454
00:16:15,030 --> 00:16:16,550
I'm just gonna go get that license.

455
00:16:17,970 --> 00:16:19,060
And looking back,

456
00:16:19,150 --> 00:16:20,180
if I told my younger self,

457
00:16:20,190 --> 00:16:22,840
I was that, hold on, young buck,

458
00:16:22,870 --> 00:16:24,570
because there's no way.

459
00:16:24,730 --> 00:16:26,410
You don't have a market plan.

460
00:16:26,490 --> 00:16:27,990
You don't have production,

461
00:16:28,120 --> 00:16:30,750
you don't have a team. Like, there's

462
00:16:30,780 --> 00:16:33,540
no possible way that you could do this. And,

463
00:16:33,670 --> 00:16:37,350
but it was the craziest story. I,

464
00:16:39,010 --> 00:16:40,510
so I had designs in mind.

465
00:16:40,540 --> 00:16:41,960
I started designing a whole

466
00:16:41,990 --> 00:16:44,640
collection of DC inspired clothing.

467
00:16:44,790 --> 00:16:46,370
And because if you remember, during, like,

468
00:16:46,410 --> 00:16:49,760
20 1415 or so,

469
00:16:49,910 --> 00:16:51,570
Marvel was really had blown up.

470
00:16:51,610 --> 00:16:53,910
Like, DC was sort of, like, on its rise, right?

471
00:16:53,940 --> 00:16:54,480
You know,

472
00:16:54,590 --> 00:16:56,770
Wonder Woman was coming out in 2017.

473
00:16:56,890 --> 00:16:58,000
And so, you know, things were, like,

474
00:16:58,030 --> 00:16:59,830
on the up for DC at that time.

475
00:17:00,930 --> 00:17:04,630
So a partner,

476
00:17:04,680 --> 00:17:05,910
a business partner of mine,

477
00:17:05,980 --> 00:17:08,710
he made a connection with somebody who

478
00:17:08,740 --> 00:17:11,670
happened to be in licensing at Warner Brothers.

479
00:17:11,970 --> 00:17:13,810
And so they just,

480
00:17:13,890 --> 00:17:16,579
so he just emailed and just said, hey, like,

481
00:17:16,710 --> 00:17:18,290
my friend, blah, blah, blah,

482
00:17:18,369 --> 00:17:20,910
would you at least consider taking a meeting?

483
00:17:21,099 --> 00:17:22,230
So this person I

484
00:17:22,240 --> 00:17:26,270
was in licensing just randomly had,

485
00:17:27,750 --> 00:17:30,370
in the past couple years, had,

486
00:17:30,950 --> 00:17:33,930
I was already on her radar because I was

487
00:17:35,990 --> 00:17:38,210
already known for my

488
00:17:38,590 --> 00:17:41,210
Warner Brothers costume bags.

489
00:17:41,300 --> 00:17:43,370
It was so much on social media. All

490
00:17:43,400 --> 00:17:46,050
those bags were produced by Warner Brothers.

491
00:17:46,430 --> 00:17:48,570
So it was all this, like, you know,

492
00:17:48,640 --> 00:17:50,170
free advertising for them.

493
00:17:50,320 --> 00:17:52,930
And so because she had already knew how,

494
00:17:53,000 --> 00:17:55,240
who I was and because I already kind

495
00:17:55,270 --> 00:17:57,100
of made a little splash in my little, small,

496
00:17:57,150 --> 00:17:58,790
little corner of the woods,

497
00:17:59,690 --> 00:18:02,380
she was like, oh, like, I, yeah, I

498
00:18:02,390 --> 00:18:04,980
totally know who this guy is. I could totally,

499
00:18:05,030 --> 00:18:05,860
I love to meet with

500
00:18:05,870 --> 00:18:08,150
them and just see what he, you know, has offer.

501
00:18:08,610 --> 00:18:11,170
And that time is owned by Warner Brothers, too,

502
00:18:11,210 --> 00:18:12,640
isn't it? So, like, that's a,

503
00:18:12,710 --> 00:18:14,280
that's a real great connection, the

504
00:18:14,310 --> 00:18:16,260
fact that you've already brought out a bunch

505
00:18:16,270 --> 00:18:18,380
of Warner Brothers stuff for them, right? Yeah.

506
00:18:18,470 --> 00:18:20,550
Yeah. So they said, hey, let's meet.

507
00:18:20,620 --> 00:18:22,420
And I couldn't believe I got the email. I

508
00:18:22,430 --> 00:18:25,330
couldn't believe that they wanted to meet. And

509
00:18:25,520 --> 00:18:27,340
so at that time, I was like, oh, crap, like,

510
00:18:27,370 --> 00:18:29,050
I really need to get my act together on this.

511
00:18:29,080 --> 00:18:30,410
And so I started, like,

512
00:18:30,440 --> 00:18:32,300
getting all my designs together,

513
00:18:32,410 --> 00:18:34,130
and they put a date on the calendar,

514
00:18:34,160 --> 00:18:35,730
which was, like, literally, like,

515
00:18:35,760 --> 00:18:37,110
six weeks away. And,

516
00:18:37,230 --> 00:18:38,070
and then that this

517
00:18:38,110 --> 00:18:40,700
person kept emailing me saying, oh, hey,

518
00:18:40,730 --> 00:18:42,210
so and so is going to join our meeting. Oh,

519
00:18:42,240 --> 00:18:43,240
so and so else is going to join it.

520
00:18:43,250 --> 00:18:44,840
Like, it started growing, right?

521
00:18:44,930 --> 00:18:47,450
And I'm like, I'm nobody. I'm just,

522
00:18:47,520 --> 00:18:49,600
I'm just a dude.

523
00:18:49,730 --> 00:18:51,810
And they're saying, oh, we have. The director

524
00:18:51,860 --> 00:18:53,560
of marketing is going to come about, you know,

525
00:18:53,610 --> 00:18:54,730
so the meetings are growing,

526
00:18:54,760 --> 00:18:56,380
and I'm just like, which sort of, like,

527
00:18:56,430 --> 00:18:58,160
the reflection of how little

528
00:18:58,200 --> 00:19:00,170
there was in the market at that time, what I,

529
00:19:00,220 --> 00:19:01,510
what I had envisioned, you know,

530
00:19:01,580 --> 00:19:02,260
because I sent them a

531
00:19:02,270 --> 00:19:07,340
couple mock ups and whatever. So, fortunately,

532
00:19:07,370 --> 00:19:08,080
a good friend of mine

533
00:19:08,120 --> 00:19:09,310
who was helping me at that time,

534
00:19:09,380 --> 00:19:11,600
getting kind of production up and running, this

535
00:19:11,640 --> 00:19:14,060
person had a lot of experience with production,

536
00:19:14,090 --> 00:19:15,740
so at least, you know, he,

537
00:19:15,830 --> 00:19:18,300
he was there to help me not look like a fool.

538
00:19:18,450 --> 00:19:22,090
But, but when it came to the,

539
00:19:22,270 --> 00:19:27,750
the day of the actual pitch day. Yeah,

540
00:19:27,800 --> 00:19:30,530
pitch day. You know, I had a deck, and I just,

541
00:19:30,570 --> 00:19:34,010
we drove up into the, you know, into Burbank,

542
00:19:34,050 --> 00:19:34,980
into Warner brothers,

543
00:19:35,030 --> 00:19:37,490
and through, you know, this big,

544
00:19:37,530 --> 00:19:38,910
giant building that had, like,

545
00:19:38,960 --> 00:19:41,390
all this incredible, like, Batman

546
00:19:41,480 --> 00:19:45,230
and everything else, Harry Potter, you know,

547
00:19:45,380 --> 00:19:47,030
just all this incredible stuff.

548
00:19:47,200 --> 00:19:49,310
And we went to this meeting, sat down,

549
00:19:49,420 --> 00:19:50,840
and there was probably, like,

550
00:19:50,910 --> 00:19:52,590
I don't know, um, it was me,

551
00:19:52,640 --> 00:19:54,350
and I had a couple people with me,

552
00:19:54,460 --> 00:19:55,140
and then there was, like,

553
00:19:55,150 --> 00:19:56,810
a dozen people on their side of the table,

554
00:19:56,850 --> 00:19:58,160
so a lot of people there.

555
00:19:58,310 --> 00:20:00,710
All these, like, all these seats, right.

556
00:20:01,490 --> 00:20:03,740
I'm just like, so this, you know,

557
00:20:03,750 --> 00:20:05,310
I'm saying all this because, you know,

558
00:20:05,340 --> 00:20:08,030
the imposter syndrome was, like, really

559
00:20:08,100 --> 00:20:11,830
kicking in hard for. Right, sure. And, well,

560
00:20:12,690 --> 00:20:13,810
and people ask me all the time,

561
00:20:13,850 --> 00:20:15,360
how do you get a license in this store?

562
00:20:15,390 --> 00:20:16,340
I'm telling you,

563
00:20:16,470 --> 00:20:17,950
is there's a thousand

564
00:20:18,020 --> 00:20:19,140
different versions of this story,

565
00:20:19,190 --> 00:20:21,670
so you cannot replicate what I'm about

566
00:20:21,700 --> 00:20:24,190
to tell you just happened. But it just, every

567
00:20:24,240 --> 00:20:25,740
person who gets a license, something else,

568
00:20:25,790 --> 00:20:28,870
something weird like this happens. So anyway,

569
00:20:30,210 --> 00:20:31,680
at that time, Warner Bros.

570
00:20:31,710 --> 00:20:34,480
Had just got bought by a at and t, I believe.

571
00:20:34,630 --> 00:20:37,270
And so whenever there's a merger that occurs,

572
00:20:37,730 --> 00:20:40,480
then there's always a changing

573
00:20:40,510 --> 00:20:43,700
of the guard. Yeah, big shuffles, right? I,

574
00:20:43,810 --> 00:20:45,140
so the

575
00:20:46,800 --> 00:20:50,210
gal that oversaw that just came on, like,

576
00:20:50,260 --> 00:20:51,620
three or four weeks prior,

577
00:20:51,770 --> 00:20:53,900
just came on to oversee all of

578
00:20:54,840 --> 00:20:57,780
apparel for Warner Brothers.

579
00:20:58,480 --> 00:21:01,800
She came from Disney, and so, like,

580
00:21:01,840 --> 00:21:03,780
anyone's coming in, they're.

581
00:21:04,160 --> 00:21:05,660
They're basically cleaning house.

582
00:21:05,770 --> 00:21:08,580
They want to start off with, you know,

583
00:21:08,610 --> 00:21:10,400
brand new brands kind of, you know,

584
00:21:10,440 --> 00:21:11,950
see what's going on.

585
00:21:12,060 --> 00:21:12,760
They're looking for

586
00:21:12,800 --> 00:21:14,730
something to prove themselves to. I bet.

587
00:21:14,780 --> 00:21:15,700
I bet she's like,

588
00:21:15,730 --> 00:21:16,860
I could take this from

589
00:21:16,910 --> 00:21:19,760
beginning to end from my own,

590
00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:20,980
and I don't have to figure out

591
00:21:21,010 --> 00:21:22,770
what so and so did before I was here.

592
00:21:22,820 --> 00:21:23,910
Yeah. This guy obviously

593
00:21:23,940 --> 00:21:28,660
hasn't already figured out, so. Right. That's.

594
00:21:30,320 --> 00:21:33,940
I have not made a single scrap.

595
00:21:34,320 --> 00:21:37,680
I mean, just, we met. We had samples. We had.

596
00:21:37,710 --> 00:21:40,840
We not produced a single. Single thing. Not.

597
00:21:41,010 --> 00:21:44,480
Not sewn a single anything, not, you know, so,

598
00:21:44,900 --> 00:21:48,880
of course they didn't know that. So. So this.

599
00:21:49,700 --> 00:21:53,350
So this lady comes in, and she.

600
00:21:53,520 --> 00:21:58,000
She sits down and, you know, she looks like.

601
00:21:58,620 --> 00:21:59,840
She looks like

602
00:22:01,220 --> 00:22:02,870
Cruella Deville because she's, like,

603
00:22:02,980 --> 00:22:06,270
very sophisticated, all black, slim.

604
00:22:06,340 --> 00:22:08,380
She had this, like, fur,

605
00:22:08,470 --> 00:22:09,770
big collar thing with, like,

606
00:22:09,810 --> 00:22:10,430
feathers coming

607
00:22:10,480 --> 00:22:13,370
off of it and very, like, serious. Right?

608
00:22:13,450 --> 00:22:14,750
Devil wears Prada.

609
00:22:14,880 --> 00:22:16,290
Yeah, totally. That, right.

610
00:22:16,330 --> 00:22:17,630
So super intimidating.

611
00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:19,450
She sits down and everyone, clearly,

612
00:22:19,490 --> 00:22:20,230
she's the one in charge.

613
00:22:20,260 --> 00:22:21,470
She's at the head of the table,

614
00:22:22,170 --> 00:22:24,160
and I'm just, like, going, oh, my God, like,

615
00:22:24,190 --> 00:22:25,820
what is happening here? So we, you know,

616
00:22:25,830 --> 00:22:26,830
we did our pitch,

617
00:22:27,530 --> 00:22:30,710
and we did our song and dance, and then

618
00:22:30,760 --> 00:22:33,950
we ended and that. They all, like, in unison,

619
00:22:34,060 --> 00:22:34,860
were looking at me.

620
00:22:34,910 --> 00:22:36,320
They all turned and looked at her,

621
00:22:36,390 --> 00:22:39,100
and she just says, I love it. Make it happen.

622
00:22:39,150 --> 00:22:40,580
And she hit her hands

623
00:22:40,590 --> 00:22:43,110
on the table and she walked out.

624
00:22:46,050 --> 00:22:49,310
So at that point, so typically,

625
00:22:49,400 --> 00:22:51,890
you have to negotiate the licensing

626
00:22:51,930 --> 00:22:54,260
fee and all the terms and all that.

627
00:22:54,390 --> 00:22:56,720
But there was no.

628
00:22:56,890 --> 00:22:58,960
There was no discussion or there was

629
00:22:59,010 --> 00:23:01,740
no negotiating because they just said,

630
00:23:01,780 --> 00:23:04,170
whatever you want, because this lady, we said,

631
00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:05,560
just make it happen. I don't care.

632
00:23:05,610 --> 00:23:06,600
And then she walked out.

633
00:23:06,710 --> 00:23:08,550
So they let me create all

634
00:23:08,560 --> 00:23:11,440
the terms for it and decide everything.

635
00:23:12,020 --> 00:23:15,720
And then literally, like, the next day, I had.

636
00:23:17,940 --> 00:23:18,920
I was off and running.

637
00:23:18,970 --> 00:23:20,880
So it was the.

638
00:23:21,420 --> 00:23:24,680
It was the craziest thing I'd ever experienced.

639
00:23:24,710 --> 00:23:26,470
And I worked with licensing

640
00:23:26,520 --> 00:23:28,090
with many companies after that,

641
00:23:28,120 --> 00:23:29,720
and it's never ever been like that.

642
00:23:29,750 --> 00:23:31,450
I'm sure it's never happened, like,

643
00:23:31,480 --> 00:23:32,640
with anyone else, but.

644
00:23:33,620 --> 00:23:35,470
And, yeah, so, basically,

645
00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:36,560
I got the license, like,

646
00:23:36,590 --> 00:23:37,670
in April or so,

647
00:23:37,720 --> 00:23:38,600
and then in May,

648
00:23:38,650 --> 00:23:40,200
I started putting everything together,

649
00:23:40,270 --> 00:23:43,300
and we launched at San Diego Comic Con,

650
00:23:43,380 --> 00:23:47,260
which basically all that was Washington.

651
00:23:47,670 --> 00:23:48,870
I was just.

652
00:23:48,950 --> 00:23:50,110
I had a handful of samples,

653
00:23:50,150 --> 00:23:51,240
and I was just hustling

654
00:23:51,290 --> 00:23:53,050
it on every street corner. I could find, like,

655
00:23:53,080 --> 00:23:54,610
literally going to events.

656
00:23:55,070 --> 00:23:57,450
I was hosting a bloggers party.

657
00:23:57,520 --> 00:23:59,320
I would set up displays.

658
00:23:59,490 --> 00:24:01,700
I would take it to panels.

659
00:24:01,890 --> 00:24:02,970
I was just literally,

660
00:24:03,020 --> 00:24:06,040
just to anyone who would stop and listen,

661
00:24:06,170 --> 00:24:07,290
I would be like,

662
00:24:07,750 --> 00:24:09,010
I have this new product.

663
00:24:09,160 --> 00:24:11,410
I've got four or five samples here.

664
00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:12,790
Can you take a look at it,

665
00:24:12,910 --> 00:24:16,940
tell me what you think about it, and kind of.

666
00:24:17,050 --> 00:24:20,570
Kind of go from there. So it was. It was like.

667
00:24:24,950 --> 00:24:27,100
Hey, nerdpreneurs. Chris, coming at you.

668
00:24:27,210 --> 00:24:28,120
Thanks for listening.

669
00:24:28,170 --> 00:24:30,010
And I wanted to let you know something.

670
00:24:30,160 --> 00:24:31,300
We're building a community of

671
00:24:31,330 --> 00:24:33,450
people who want to become successful,

672
00:24:33,500 --> 00:24:34,740
nerdy business owners,

673
00:24:34,810 --> 00:24:35,400
and we're going

674
00:24:35,410 --> 00:24:37,210
to keep collecting these amazing,

675
00:24:37,260 --> 00:24:39,010
inspirational stories like Tony's.

676
00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:41,140
So if you want to be part of that community,

677
00:24:41,230 --> 00:24:43,100
go to patreon.com

678
00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:46,020
nerdpreneur and sign up to be a

679
00:24:46,050 --> 00:24:49,050
member of our awesome nerdpreneur board.

680
00:24:49,220 --> 00:24:52,220
Board members get full interviews, uncut,

681
00:24:52,290 --> 00:24:54,980
including another 40 minutes with Tony.

682
00:24:55,130 --> 00:24:57,030
So go to patreon.com

683
00:24:57,180 --> 00:24:59,120
nerdpreneur and check it out.

684
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:01,820
Now let's get back to the episode.

685
00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:04,860
What I really love about your

686
00:25:04,910 --> 00:25:07,640
story is just the serendipitous nature.

687
00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:10,350
But not just serendipitous. Like,

688
00:25:10,460 --> 00:25:13,600
there's so much on your end of, like you said,

689
00:25:13,630 --> 00:25:15,510
you were hustling your prototype,

690
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:16,930
your superman prototype,

691
00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:18,850
at San Diego Comic Con, and, you know,

692
00:25:18,880 --> 00:25:20,600
you got your market research done.

693
00:25:20,690 --> 00:25:21,480
But not only that,

694
00:25:21,510 --> 00:25:22,710
you'd kind of been building up

695
00:25:22,720 --> 00:25:24,780
the courage with these other projects,

696
00:25:24,860 --> 00:25:26,020
and you got noticed.

697
00:25:26,060 --> 00:25:28,660
And because of that notice, years later,

698
00:25:28,740 --> 00:25:31,400
that came back to you. And I think.

699
00:25:31,470 --> 00:25:34,200
I think that's really fascinating to me because

700
00:25:34,330 --> 00:25:36,170
we do talk to other people that, you know,

701
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:38,220
they've definitely got the imposter syndrome.

702
00:25:38,310 --> 00:25:39,650
You know, that happens.

703
00:25:39,740 --> 00:25:41,170
But they have these different

704
00:25:41,260 --> 00:25:43,500
moments that kind of build up. Like, there's.

705
00:25:43,570 --> 00:25:46,340
There's these steps that we don't realize are

706
00:25:46,430 --> 00:25:49,480
steps until we get to the point of, like,

707
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:50,700
how did I get here?

708
00:25:50,750 --> 00:25:51,810
Well, you know, one

709
00:25:51,820 --> 00:25:54,800
of my heroes is the author, Seth Godin.

710
00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:55,620
One of his phrases,

711
00:25:55,650 --> 00:25:59,510
he always says is that a hesitant trapeze

712
00:25:59,580 --> 00:26:02,460
artist is a dead trapeze artist. You know,

713
00:26:02,490 --> 00:26:03,500
that you can't.

714
00:26:03,590 --> 00:26:06,640
You can't traverse the gap in two jumps.

715
00:26:06,690 --> 00:26:07,980
You have to do it in one big jump,

716
00:26:08,020 --> 00:26:08,990
or else you're dead. Right?

717
00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:09,490
Yeah.

718
00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:10,800
And so I've always taken

719
00:26:10,830 --> 00:26:11,960
that to heart. That's like, you know what?

720
00:26:11,970 --> 00:26:12,640
If you're gonna go for it,

721
00:26:12,650 --> 00:26:14,680
you just got to go all the way. And you may,

722
00:26:14,730 --> 00:26:16,530
you may fall on your face, you know,

723
00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:18,110
and you may fall multiple times,

724
00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:19,520
but one of those times maybe

725
00:26:19,550 --> 00:26:21,840
you'll catch a ring and you can run. I mean,

726
00:26:21,870 --> 00:26:23,150
and then you can, you know, move forward.

727
00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:23,950
So that's what

728
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:24,930
the whole Warner brothers thing was,

729
00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:27,810
that it was just like me just leaping as

730
00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:30,440
far as I could go and just praying to God

731
00:26:30,570 --> 00:26:32,550
that I could catch one of those rungs.

732
00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:35,240
And it just sort of, like, varies, you know,

733
00:26:35,270 --> 00:26:37,000
serendipitous sort of, you know, moment.

734
00:26:37,030 --> 00:26:38,980
It just sort of happened in Hollywood.

735
00:26:39,020 --> 00:26:40,200
I feel like that's what they always

736
00:26:40,230 --> 00:26:41,670
say in Hollywood is even if you

737
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:43,680
don't know how to do it, just say yes. Like,

738
00:26:43,730 --> 00:26:45,360
you can do it because you can

739
00:26:45,410 --> 00:26:46,950
figure it out once you land

740
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:48,960
the job or once you get the contract,

741
00:26:49,070 --> 00:26:50,480
you figure it out afterwards.

742
00:26:50,530 --> 00:26:53,450
And I think a lot of nerdy entrepreneurs

743
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:56,490
learn that lesson early on because they

744
00:26:56,520 --> 00:26:58,050
often don't know how to do the business

745
00:26:58,120 --> 00:27:00,490
side of their nerdy passion or how to, like,

746
00:27:00,560 --> 00:27:02,120
scale it in some ways.

747
00:27:02,250 --> 00:27:04,560
But if you say yes to those opportunities

748
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:06,790
when they come around and bank on yourself,

749
00:27:06,860 --> 00:27:07,940
you can kind of trust that

750
00:27:07,970 --> 00:27:09,980
you'll figure it out as you go along.

751
00:27:10,130 --> 00:27:10,780
So that's.

752
00:27:10,850 --> 00:27:11,740
I think that's a super,

753
00:27:11,830 --> 00:27:13,610
super cool lesson you

754
00:27:13,620 --> 00:27:15,120
mentioned you had another cool story, though,

755
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:16,980
that kind of goes along with that.

756
00:27:17,170 --> 00:27:19,580
Well, what really, really launched the company.

757
00:27:19,630 --> 00:27:20,840
So that started the company,

758
00:27:20,920 --> 00:27:22,040
and we had a license,

759
00:27:22,120 --> 00:27:23,990
and we had ideas.

760
00:27:24,180 --> 00:27:25,980
We hadn't started manufacturing.

761
00:27:26,030 --> 00:27:27,380
We hadn't taken any orders.

762
00:27:27,570 --> 00:27:30,380
So it's July of 2016.

763
00:27:30,450 --> 00:27:31,970
I have taken zero orders.

764
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:34,090
I have a website. I've got samples.

765
00:27:34,160 --> 00:27:35,170
That's all I have.

766
00:27:35,300 --> 00:27:37,410
So I go to San Diego again,

767
00:27:37,460 --> 00:27:38,260
just sort of hustling.

768
00:27:38,330 --> 00:27:41,040
And I had a couple weeks before,

769
00:27:41,130 --> 00:27:43,950
I had reached out to the gal who was running

770
00:27:43,990 --> 00:27:46,880
a panel called the business of geek fashion,

771
00:27:46,930 --> 00:27:49,960
which was just a handful of people,

772
00:27:50,010 --> 00:27:51,470
like Ashley Eckstein from

773
00:27:51,510 --> 00:27:53,290
her universe and a few other people,

774
00:27:53,830 --> 00:27:56,030
mostly just geek websites.

775
00:27:56,060 --> 00:27:57,640
Not so much fashion companies,

776
00:27:57,710 --> 00:28:00,970
but more just like, geek websites. So I had,

777
00:28:01,010 --> 00:28:01,690
the year prior,

778
00:28:01,730 --> 00:28:03,110
when I was at Comic Con,

779
00:28:03,220 --> 00:28:05,040
kind of hustling my,

780
00:28:05,190 --> 00:28:07,500
my Superman blazer,

781
00:28:07,670 --> 00:28:09,020
I went to this panel. You know,

782
00:28:09,030 --> 00:28:12,320
I was sitting in audience taking, you know,

783
00:28:12,470 --> 00:28:14,190
I just had this vision of the company,

784
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:15,480
but I was like, didn't know anything.

785
00:28:15,510 --> 00:28:17,790
So I was just, you know, feverishly

786
00:28:17,820 --> 00:28:20,130
taking notes and listening to this, these

787
00:28:20,170 --> 00:28:22,310
people talk about how they started a company,

788
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:24,460
you know, licensing, blah, blah, blah,

789
00:28:24,490 --> 00:28:25,420
all that stuff.

790
00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:29,020
So they were having that panel again the,

791
00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:31,980
this current year, the 2016.

792
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:35,390
And so I emailed the lady about two weeks out,

793
00:28:35,420 --> 00:28:36,190
and I just said, hey,

794
00:28:36,260 --> 00:28:37,450
I know this is a long shot,

795
00:28:37,540 --> 00:28:40,620
but I was in your panel a year ago

796
00:28:41,080 --> 00:28:43,310
with the hopes of starting a fashion company,

797
00:28:43,500 --> 00:28:46,780
and now I have one, and I just, I don't.

798
00:28:46,810 --> 00:28:47,920
I'm not anywhere.

799
00:28:48,060 --> 00:28:51,150
But how awesome would it be for if you to.

800
00:28:51,890 --> 00:28:53,980
At your panel that you had someone that

801
00:28:53,990 --> 00:28:56,620
was in the audience a year prior that

802
00:28:56,630 --> 00:28:58,220
just started a company that just got

803
00:28:58,230 --> 00:29:00,570
the DC license that's just starting out,

804
00:29:00,610 --> 00:29:02,470
and then contrast it to all your.

805
00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:04,170
All the other people you have experienced?

806
00:29:04,250 --> 00:29:05,630
I'd love to be that person.

807
00:29:05,970 --> 00:29:06,780
And she was like,

808
00:29:06,790 --> 00:29:07,630
that's a great idea.

809
00:29:07,700 --> 00:29:10,730
Oh, great story. Yeah.

810
00:29:10,770 --> 00:29:11,950
Right pitch.

811
00:29:12,080 --> 00:29:15,170
Yeah. So now I'm on this. I'm on this

812
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:18,530
panel that has all my, you know, people who.

813
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:19,790
All these seniors ahead of

814
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:22,080
me that are all established business. Again,

815
00:29:22,190 --> 00:29:25,110
I've not accomplished anything. And, you know,

816
00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:26,550
I tell my story. I'm like, hey,

817
00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:28,050
I was in your, you know,

818
00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:28,820
just where you are,

819
00:29:28,860 --> 00:29:30,680
but I'm proof that, like, you

820
00:29:30,690 --> 00:29:32,950
can take baby steps, do. If you take, you know,

821
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:33,760
if you're courageous

822
00:29:33,790 --> 00:29:35,830
enough and blah, blah, blah. Well, anyway,

823
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:38,470
the panel is over. And again,

824
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:40,720
I've not sold anything yet. I'm not. I'm just.

825
00:29:40,750 --> 00:29:41,370
I'm literally just

826
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:42,950
faking it till I make it right.

827
00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:44,200
And I'm being very honest

828
00:29:44,230 --> 00:29:45,120
with the people who were there,

829
00:29:45,150 --> 00:29:47,490
but I'm just, you know, being very honest.

830
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:50,100
I'm sitting next to the guy who

831
00:29:50,180 --> 00:29:52,810
oversees all the product at think geek.

832
00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:53,680
You remember think geek.

833
00:29:53,710 --> 00:29:54,060
Yeah.

834
00:29:54,140 --> 00:29:54,960
Was one of the most

835
00:29:54,990 --> 00:29:57,200
popular websites for the world.

836
00:29:57,270 --> 00:29:58,060
Nerd news stuff.

837
00:29:58,100 --> 00:30:01,690
Yeah, yeah. For. It was all. It was a product,

838
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:03,160
merchandise and all that.

839
00:30:03,190 --> 00:30:04,270
It was out of all

840
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:05,950
the world's websites at the time,

841
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:08,060
it was number 3000. So.

842
00:30:08,100 --> 00:30:09,690
Which sounds like a lot, but there's.

843
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:10,480
A lot of websites.

844
00:30:10,590 --> 00:30:10,810
Yeah.

845
00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:11,800
That's crazy.

846
00:30:12,490 --> 00:30:14,410
So the guy

847
00:30:14,450 --> 00:30:15,920
next to me who's on the panel, he said,

848
00:30:15,950 --> 00:30:18,550
you know what we've been looking forever for?

849
00:30:18,640 --> 00:30:19,730
I'm so tired of

850
00:30:19,850 --> 00:30:21,470
t shirts and hoodies and blah, blah, blah.

851
00:30:21,560 --> 00:30:22,150
We've been looking

852
00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:25,230
forever for products that you're.

853
00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:26,880
That you want to make. And

854
00:30:26,910 --> 00:30:31,280
so this is right after panel's done. In fact,

855
00:30:31,310 --> 00:30:32,260
we're not even off the stage yet.

856
00:30:32,270 --> 00:30:33,310
He's telling me this.

857
00:30:33,770 --> 00:30:36,030
I want to sign you to a six figure deal

858
00:30:36,370 --> 00:30:40,550
and get production going, like, right away.

859
00:30:40,700 --> 00:30:43,710
So I left that panel with a

860
00:30:43,900 --> 00:30:47,450
contracted six figure deal to

861
00:30:47,500 --> 00:30:50,570
make all this merchandise for think geek,

862
00:30:50,700 --> 00:30:52,410
off of all my designs,

863
00:30:52,580 --> 00:30:54,420
and I've not made anything.

864
00:30:58,080 --> 00:30:59,700
Wow. Wow.

865
00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:02,640
That's a crazy jump right there. You're like,

866
00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:04,430
let's just see how far I can go.

867
00:31:04,540 --> 00:31:07,530
And all the way to the six figure contract.

868
00:31:08,030 --> 00:31:11,050
Right place, right time, right story.

869
00:31:11,220 --> 00:31:12,490
That's so cool.

870
00:31:12,950 --> 00:31:15,650
Yeah, a lot of people, it sounds like a

871
00:31:15,660 --> 00:31:18,480
lot of people needed to see this opportunity,

872
00:31:18,530 --> 00:31:20,850
get legs from somebody. But, like,

873
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:22,270
it sounds like, you know, there,

874
00:31:22,310 --> 00:31:23,600
you saw that hole in the market,

875
00:31:23,650 --> 00:31:24,490
so there was nobody.

876
00:31:24,540 --> 00:31:25,260
What was the time? Like,

877
00:31:25,290 --> 00:31:26,990
how long did that take from, like,

878
00:31:27,110 --> 00:31:29,300
fired at your job to now?

879
00:31:29,330 --> 00:31:30,170
I have a six figure

880
00:31:30,220 --> 00:31:32,250
contract doing something I love.

881
00:31:32,300 --> 00:31:33,980
I'm super excited to do.

882
00:31:34,110 --> 00:31:36,060
I mean, I ended in January,

883
00:31:36,170 --> 00:31:38,660
and then I was comic con in July.

884
00:31:38,770 --> 00:31:41,150
So all this happened within five or six months

885
00:31:41,180 --> 00:31:45,060
or something like that. So, yeah, craziest,

886
00:31:45,090 --> 00:31:47,890
most banana things. And, you know,

887
00:31:47,980 --> 00:31:50,140
now did you ever. And I,

888
00:31:50,310 --> 00:31:53,070
now after doing this for eight years, no one

889
00:31:53,100 --> 00:31:56,410
writes you a six figure amount for, you know,

890
00:31:56,420 --> 00:31:58,580
they test you with small amounts first

891
00:31:58,650 --> 00:32:00,820
and then lets you build up over time,

892
00:32:00,870 --> 00:32:01,910
see if it sells, whatever.

893
00:32:01,940 --> 00:32:03,540
But this guy just wrote a

894
00:32:03,550 --> 00:32:06,660
big old fat check and just said, let's do this.

895
00:32:06,710 --> 00:32:09,960
And so from July to December,

896
00:32:10,030 --> 00:32:11,600
it was all manufacturing and just,

897
00:32:11,630 --> 00:32:12,440
and then we, of course,

898
00:32:12,470 --> 00:32:14,130
took online orders from my own customers.

899
00:32:14,170 --> 00:32:15,420
And it starts, you know,

900
00:32:15,430 --> 00:32:16,390
and then those combined

901
00:32:16,420 --> 00:32:18,350
together is what basically

902
00:32:19,090 --> 00:32:20,950
got everything going because all that,

903
00:32:21,060 --> 00:32:24,610
all that thinkeek money paid for all that

904
00:32:24,650 --> 00:32:26,910
production and manufacturing. And I, you know,

905
00:32:26,940 --> 00:32:28,910
it just sort of then started. It just,

906
00:32:29,100 --> 00:32:31,860
it started sustaining itself after that point.

907
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:35,590
What strikes me is how this person at

908
00:32:35,620 --> 00:32:38,160
think geek took this leap with somebody

909
00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:41,390
who had a promise and an idea and said,

910
00:32:41,500 --> 00:32:43,540
here's six figures. You know,

911
00:32:43,610 --> 00:32:46,130
that to me is like, I mean, why?

912
00:32:46,220 --> 00:32:47,910
Why would they do that?

913
00:32:48,060 --> 00:32:49,160
No idea.

914
00:32:49,280 --> 00:32:52,190
And the only thing I can think of is that

915
00:32:52,300 --> 00:32:54,940
because you were proof of your progress.

916
00:32:55,020 --> 00:32:56,510
In just one year,

917
00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:58,490
you went from being an audience member,

918
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:00,590
taking notes from this panel to

919
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:02,420
standing up on the stage telling

920
00:33:02,460 --> 00:33:05,580
a story of success beside this panel.

921
00:33:05,660 --> 00:33:07,100
And I feel like that is,

922
00:33:07,220 --> 00:33:10,000
that is a testament of your.

923
00:33:10,740 --> 00:33:11,710
I appreciate that. I mean,

924
00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:15,050
I always tell people that any amount of

925
00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:18,150
success comes down to three things. Talented,

926
00:33:18,190 --> 00:33:19,750
hard work, and luck. Right. And

927
00:33:19,790 --> 00:33:21,540
talent is what everyone sees on the outside.

928
00:33:21,610 --> 00:33:22,450
That's the celebrity

929
00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:25,220
is good looking and all the skills. Right. But,

930
00:33:25,290 --> 00:33:26,900
but I found that, like, talent

931
00:33:26,930 --> 00:33:28,840
is actually a very small part of it, whether,

932
00:33:28,890 --> 00:33:31,470
whatever business you're doing, the talent,

933
00:33:31,550 --> 00:33:34,270
while it's more visible and people praise that,

934
00:33:34,390 --> 00:33:37,290
it's actually 1020 percent of my job.

935
00:33:37,420 --> 00:33:39,290
Hard work is a bigger chunk of it. Right.

936
00:33:39,340 --> 00:33:40,590
You got to do put in the work,

937
00:33:40,630 --> 00:33:42,310
you got to put in the sweat, tears, all that.

938
00:33:42,390 --> 00:33:43,150
But then there's always

939
00:33:43,190 --> 00:33:45,000
this last little piece of it,

940
00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:48,100
the luck factor that it's intangible, that

941
00:33:48,130 --> 00:33:50,540
you can't really replicate on demand. Right.

942
00:33:50,650 --> 00:33:51,790
And even more,

943
00:33:51,860 --> 00:33:53,740
if I even got more below the surface.

944
00:33:53,770 --> 00:33:55,310
It's not so much random luck,

945
00:33:55,380 --> 00:33:56,060
but when I say luck,

946
00:33:56,090 --> 00:33:59,070
I mean more relationships. Right.

947
00:33:59,180 --> 00:34:03,100
It's the me happened to have know that

948
00:34:03,130 --> 00:34:05,270
person at Warner Brothers that's were aware

949
00:34:05,300 --> 00:34:09,820
of me through my cosplay. It's the. It's the.

950
00:34:11,199 --> 00:34:13,400
The person I sat next to

951
00:34:13,580 --> 00:34:15,550
on the panel that just believed in me,

952
00:34:15,590 --> 00:34:17,469
that actually launched things out, you know?

953
00:34:17,510 --> 00:34:19,840
And then I have a million stories of

954
00:34:19,969 --> 00:34:22,860
people that helped me go to the next level.

955
00:34:22,929 --> 00:34:26,320
Right. And so most people, when

956
00:34:26,330 --> 00:34:27,210
they ask me about here

957
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:29,010
within or any other related business,

958
00:34:29,139 --> 00:34:30,850
they focus so much on the talent, like,

959
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:32,139
all the designing and the

960
00:34:32,210 --> 00:34:33,310
product and the manufacturing

961
00:34:33,350 --> 00:34:34,360
and all that stuff. And, yeah, that's all.

962
00:34:34,370 --> 00:34:35,360
That's very important.

963
00:34:35,530 --> 00:34:37,449
But if you don't have the wherewithal

964
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:39,060
to put in the hard work of it and

965
00:34:39,090 --> 00:34:40,750
then also leave room for the

966
00:34:40,870 --> 00:34:42,840
luck or the relationship that intangible,

967
00:34:42,980 --> 00:34:43,820
it's just gonna be.

968
00:34:43,870 --> 00:34:45,050
It's a super uphill battle.

969
00:34:45,060 --> 00:34:45,949
It's already uphill battle,

970
00:34:45,980 --> 00:34:48,350
let alone without that, you know,

971
00:34:48,380 --> 00:34:48,940
the majority of the

972
00:34:48,949 --> 00:34:52,050
stuff that no one sees so far, your.

973
00:34:52,100 --> 00:34:53,080
Your story has

974
00:34:53,120 --> 00:34:56,570
been all prior to production, right. Like,

975
00:34:56,659 --> 00:34:58,900
prior to really making anything.

976
00:34:58,970 --> 00:35:01,140
I just wanted to know, like, during, like,

977
00:35:01,190 --> 00:35:03,050
just if you go back to that moment

978
00:35:03,140 --> 00:35:06,940
and in the thick of it, where, in a sense, the.

979
00:35:07,030 --> 00:35:09,220
You just landed a six figure contract,

980
00:35:09,350 --> 00:35:11,140
you've never made any clothing

981
00:35:11,210 --> 00:35:12,970
that you aren't wearing yourself, you

982
00:35:12,980 --> 00:35:14,980
know, like, like, this is. You don't have. Have

983
00:35:15,020 --> 00:35:17,800
all the other stuff. Like, I imagine, like,

984
00:35:17,910 --> 00:35:19,250
I could imagine what that feels like,

985
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:20,630
but I would love to know, like, what are

986
00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:25,160
you telling yourself in that moment? And, like,

987
00:35:25,210 --> 00:35:26,420
what do you do right

988
00:35:26,460 --> 00:35:28,030
after you get off that stage?

989
00:35:28,120 --> 00:35:29,280
Like, what. What do you have

990
00:35:29,290 --> 00:35:30,480
to do at that moment?

991
00:35:31,220 --> 00:35:32,560
Yeah, I mean, there definitely was.

992
00:35:32,630 --> 00:35:33,520
In that moment,

993
00:35:33,550 --> 00:35:35,030
there was a big high. I mean, those

994
00:35:35,080 --> 00:35:37,210
arrest of comic Con, and there was, you know,

995
00:35:37,240 --> 00:35:38,320
all my other appointments and all

996
00:35:38,330 --> 00:35:39,970
that sort of stuff. So, you know, I definitely,

997
00:35:40,040 --> 00:35:40,920
when I returned

998
00:35:40,950 --> 00:35:44,450
from Comic Con, I was, yeah, I mean, there was.

999
00:35:44,620 --> 00:35:46,540
There was an enormous amount of

1000
00:35:48,240 --> 00:35:49,820
disbelief and then

1001
00:35:49,950 --> 00:35:53,180
a overwhelming sense of, like, oh, my gosh,

1002
00:35:53,210 --> 00:35:54,990
if these people really find out who I am,

1003
00:35:55,020 --> 00:35:57,880
I'm completely found out. You know, again,

1004
00:35:57,920 --> 00:35:59,760
the imposter syndrome and all that,

1005
00:35:59,920 --> 00:36:02,460
and then feeling overwhelmed, that's like, how

1006
00:36:02,530 --> 00:36:06,740
am I going to fulfill, you know, this thing?

1007
00:36:06,770 --> 00:36:09,660
Because even shortly after, think geek.

1008
00:36:09,690 --> 00:36:10,810
Those other companies and

1009
00:36:10,820 --> 00:36:12,090
those other opportunities and all that,

1010
00:36:12,100 --> 00:36:13,210
so things are starting to pile up.

1011
00:36:13,220 --> 00:36:14,020
And then I had already

1012
00:36:14,070 --> 00:36:15,390
sold online to my own customers,

1013
00:36:15,420 --> 00:36:17,070
and so things were like, you know,

1014
00:36:17,100 --> 00:36:20,580
things were ramping up at that point. So, yeah,

1015
00:36:20,630 --> 00:36:22,300
feeling super overwhelmed.

1016
00:36:22,490 --> 00:36:25,260
How much time did you have to tell Comic Con

1017
00:36:25,310 --> 00:36:27,870
from that event till Comic con? Really? Like,

1018
00:36:28,060 --> 00:36:29,630
or did you. Sorry. Like, because you

1019
00:36:29,660 --> 00:36:31,280
got this at Comic Con, right? Is that right?

1020
00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:31,700
Yeah.

1021
00:36:31,790 --> 00:36:34,110
So, like, how long? Like, did

1022
00:36:34,140 --> 00:36:37,540
they say selling immediately? Like, how soon?

1023
00:36:37,610 --> 00:36:40,000
Yeah, yeah. I mean, they basically,

1024
00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:40,740
they just said,

1025
00:36:40,790 --> 00:36:41,730
how soon can get to us?

1026
00:36:41,740 --> 00:36:44,050
And so it took us at that time,

1027
00:36:44,140 --> 00:36:47,610
on my timetables were much longer. So I was.

1028
00:36:47,700 --> 00:36:49,290
We delivered in December,

1029
00:36:49,380 --> 00:36:50,020
so we went

1030
00:36:50,050 --> 00:36:52,310
from July to December. So, you know, it took.

1031
00:36:52,420 --> 00:36:54,140
Because at that time,

1032
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:56,530
and without getting into the weeds,

1033
00:36:56,660 --> 00:36:59,010
it took about four

1034
00:36:59,060 --> 00:37:00,740
months to produce anything overseas,

1035
00:37:00,850 --> 00:37:02,750
three months to manufacture one seat,

1036
00:37:02,820 --> 00:37:03,890
one month on a boat.

1037
00:37:03,940 --> 00:37:06,890
And then now things are much faster. They make.

1038
00:37:06,930 --> 00:37:08,250
They can make smaller quantities,

1039
00:37:08,370 --> 00:37:09,130
ship it through air.

1040
00:37:09,170 --> 00:37:10,600
Things are timetables much faster.

1041
00:37:10,670 --> 00:37:13,520
But back then, at least. At

1042
00:37:13,550 --> 00:37:16,030
least through the production route that I had,

1043
00:37:16,060 --> 00:37:18,710
it was just much slower. Basically,

1044
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:21,390
we were delivering in December,

1045
00:37:22,730 --> 00:37:24,390
which turned out to be a big stressful thing,

1046
00:37:24,420 --> 00:37:25,700
because trying to get everything

1047
00:37:25,750 --> 00:37:27,160
out before Christmas and all that stuff,

1048
00:37:27,190 --> 00:37:29,470
that was a big old crazy mess. But, yeah,

1049
00:37:32,660 --> 00:37:33,920
I had, yeah.

1050
00:37:33,970 --> 00:37:37,200
Never felt so a mixture of

1051
00:37:37,660 --> 00:37:39,850
exhilaration and excitement and

1052
00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:43,440
just fear and terror and just like,

1053
00:37:43,820 --> 00:37:46,110
you know what I tell people that are

1054
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:47,920
interested in their own business thing is that

1055
00:37:49,660 --> 00:37:51,100
I would wake up every

1056
00:37:51,140 --> 00:37:53,860
morning and think to myself,

1057
00:37:54,020 --> 00:37:55,320
this is never going to work.

1058
00:37:55,370 --> 00:37:57,680
This is just this foolish,

1059
00:37:57,770 --> 00:38:00,290
most stupidest thing is never gonna work.

1060
00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:04,270
And I'm going to not have a job,

1061
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:05,880
and I'm not gonna be able

1062
00:38:05,890 --> 00:38:07,320
to pay my bills and lose our house,

1063
00:38:07,370 --> 00:38:07,960
and my family and

1064
00:38:07,970 --> 00:38:10,060
I are gonna live, be homeless, and, you know,

1065
00:38:10,100 --> 00:38:11,140
all that sort of stuff. Right, yeah.

1066
00:38:11,180 --> 00:38:12,640
Dread then. Yeah.

1067
00:38:12,670 --> 00:38:15,160
And then at the end of the day, you're, like,

1068
00:38:15,190 --> 00:38:17,480
going to bed. I'm like, oh, it worked. Like.

1069
00:38:17,670 --> 00:38:19,720
And so every day for that whole year,

1070
00:38:19,770 --> 00:38:21,840
I was thinking that it's never gonna work,

1071
00:38:21,870 --> 00:38:22,990
and then go to bed and say, oh,

1072
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:24,300
it actually worked, you know,

1073
00:38:24,450 --> 00:38:25,690
and then by year two,

1074
00:38:25,740 --> 00:38:27,610
I tell people I

1075
00:38:27,620 --> 00:38:29,330
had that thought every other day.

1076
00:38:29,500 --> 00:38:30,570
And then by year three,

1077
00:38:30,620 --> 00:38:31,820
it's about every third day.

1078
00:38:31,870 --> 00:38:33,690
So now it's your 8th.

1079
00:38:33,780 --> 00:38:35,360
About every 8th day, I think,

1080
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:39,020
myself never going to work, so. So, yeah,

1081
00:38:39,190 --> 00:38:40,290
it's a good formula.

1082
00:38:40,340 --> 00:38:41,230
One day,

1083
00:38:41,420 --> 00:38:43,100
one day every year.

1084
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:44,900
Yeah. Yeah.

1085
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:48,370
I wanted to circle back for a sec.

1086
00:38:48,540 --> 00:38:50,170
You've been mentioning something about luck,

1087
00:38:50,220 --> 00:38:51,670
and it stuck with me because

1088
00:38:51,740 --> 00:38:54,340
this idea of luck, whether it's. Whether

1089
00:38:54,380 --> 00:38:57,670
it's timing, place, relationships, whatnot,

1090
00:38:57,840 --> 00:38:59,600
I want to know what you guys think about this.

1091
00:38:59,630 --> 00:39:02,440
It feels like luck is. Is about.

1092
00:39:03,260 --> 00:39:06,660
You find luck when you're out

1093
00:39:06,700 --> 00:39:08,680
there doing stuff you're not going to have.

1094
00:39:08,710 --> 00:39:10,060
You're not going to stumble into

1095
00:39:10,100 --> 00:39:12,450
luck if you're staying in your apartment,

1096
00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:14,220
your home, your basement, just,

1097
00:39:14,260 --> 00:39:15,980
like thinking or planning

1098
00:39:16,020 --> 00:39:17,970
or even just doing the logistics,

1099
00:39:18,160 --> 00:39:20,340
the luck factor of success

1100
00:39:20,460 --> 00:39:22,540
happens when you meet people for you.

1101
00:39:22,660 --> 00:39:24,500
You were out there at Comic Con showing

1102
00:39:24,540 --> 00:39:27,080
off your hard work that you'd made. You

1103
00:39:27,090 --> 00:39:29,150
were also doing that market research. You know,

1104
00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:30,460
it was that relationship you

1105
00:39:30,500 --> 00:39:32,400
had that knew the person at licensing,

1106
00:39:32,510 --> 00:39:35,490
and you probably met that person out and about.

1107
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:37,810
Probably they didn't show up at your door,

1108
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:39,210
at your apartment and say, hey,

1109
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:40,080
I'm going to be your friend,

1110
00:39:40,110 --> 00:39:41,350
and someday I'm going to get you a

1111
00:39:41,360 --> 00:39:43,840
license at Warner Brothers. You know, there's,

1112
00:39:43,890 --> 00:39:47,510
there's this aspect of you have to go out and,

1113
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:49,400
and interact with the world.

1114
00:39:49,470 --> 00:39:50,320
And there was a,

1115
00:39:50,390 --> 00:39:52,230
an old acting teacher of mine

1116
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:54,230
years ago that used to say you have

1117
00:39:54,240 --> 00:39:56,510
to put yourself into oncoming traffic,

1118
00:39:56,620 --> 00:39:58,230
metaphorically speaking.

1119
00:39:58,400 --> 00:40:00,070
And I feel like that's very

1120
00:40:00,140 --> 00:40:03,060
much a core essence here of luck. And

1121
00:40:03,070 --> 00:40:04,550
I want to know what you guys think about that.

1122
00:40:04,580 --> 00:40:05,120
Yeah. You know, I'm

1123
00:40:05,150 --> 00:40:07,560
not a super extroverted guy, but

1124
00:40:07,590 --> 00:40:10,030
I consider myself a high functioning introvert.

1125
00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:11,590
So I need my,

1126
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:13,540
I need my loan time. But when I,

1127
00:40:13,590 --> 00:40:15,430
when it's time to ramp up, I can,

1128
00:40:15,500 --> 00:40:16,360
I can do it right.

1129
00:40:16,390 --> 00:40:17,280
I can get out there.

1130
00:40:17,390 --> 00:40:18,330
I can be out front.

1131
00:40:18,410 --> 00:40:19,270
I can do the pitches,

1132
00:40:19,300 --> 00:40:20,100
and I can do that.

1133
00:40:20,190 --> 00:40:20,880
And then I'll have to

1134
00:40:20,890 --> 00:40:23,130
retreat away for a day or two, even after.

1135
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:24,130
Comic Con will be

1136
00:40:24,140 --> 00:40:26,230
a super high in a couple weeks, but then, like,

1137
00:40:26,270 --> 00:40:27,400
I'll need to retreat

1138
00:40:27,450 --> 00:40:28,820
for a week just from all that.

1139
00:40:28,850 --> 00:40:29,270
Right?

1140
00:40:29,390 --> 00:40:30,050
Yeah.

1141
00:40:30,430 --> 00:40:31,410
So I really,

1142
00:40:31,580 --> 00:40:34,240
so I really feel for those creators

1143
00:40:34,290 --> 00:40:37,730
who are much more introverted because,

1144
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:38,900
like you said,

1145
00:40:39,050 --> 00:40:39,990
you have to put yourself

1146
00:40:40,030 --> 00:40:41,870
out there in oncoming traffic, you know,

1147
00:40:41,910 --> 00:40:43,780
just to see what, what happens, you know?

1148
00:40:43,810 --> 00:40:45,720
And a majority

1149
00:40:45,770 --> 00:40:47,790
of anything good that's happened to me,

1150
00:40:47,870 --> 00:40:50,410
90% of it was just showing up, you know,

1151
00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:51,480
just being there,

1152
00:40:51,650 --> 00:40:52,580
seeing what happens.

1153
00:40:52,620 --> 00:40:54,200
A lot of times it was not

1154
00:40:54,230 --> 00:40:56,830
great things that happened, but on occasion, it

1155
00:40:56,840 --> 00:40:58,500
was something awesome would happen, you know,

1156
00:40:58,540 --> 00:41:01,790
but so much of it is just showing up.

1157
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:05,920
And I feel for this generation in particular,

1158
00:41:06,030 --> 00:41:07,480
because of our social media generation,

1159
00:41:07,530 --> 00:41:10,730
that from the pandemic forward, we

1160
00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:13,280
are so much behind our devices and our phones,

1161
00:41:13,370 --> 00:41:15,200
and we don't meet people in person,

1162
00:41:15,290 --> 00:41:16,520
and we don't go out as much.

1163
00:41:16,550 --> 00:41:18,770
And, you know, we've lost some of our,

1164
00:41:18,900 --> 00:41:20,600
some of those soft skills of just, like,

1165
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:21,910
getting out there, networking

1166
00:41:21,980 --> 00:41:24,420
and all that sort of stuff, which to me,

1167
00:41:24,450 --> 00:41:25,380
which is what's so important

1168
00:41:25,470 --> 00:41:27,380
about going to these conventions,

1169
00:41:27,430 --> 00:41:29,600
is that it keeps you more sharp

1170
00:41:29,640 --> 00:41:31,190
because you out there and you meet people

1171
00:41:31,220 --> 00:41:33,620
and talking with people. But, yeah, absolutely.

1172
00:41:33,650 --> 00:41:34,620
I just don't know how

1173
00:41:34,690 --> 00:41:38,500
anyone can really launch. I mean, you have to,

1174
00:41:38,550 --> 00:41:40,060
when I talked about talent,

1175
00:41:40,110 --> 00:41:41,450
hard work and luck,

1176
00:41:41,540 --> 00:41:42,380
you have to be really

1177
00:41:42,430 --> 00:41:43,840
off the scales on the talent side,

1178
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:45,040
which I am nothing.

1179
00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:46,970
I'm pretty good at the hard work side,

1180
00:41:47,100 --> 00:41:49,260
but the talent side,

1181
00:41:49,390 --> 00:41:50,290
you have to be off the

1182
00:41:50,300 --> 00:41:51,310
charts on talent if you're

1183
00:41:51,340 --> 00:41:53,580
going to really minimize your, like, you know,

1184
00:41:53,630 --> 00:41:55,190
being out there networking, all that stuff.

1185
00:41:55,220 --> 00:41:56,170
And some people are. That's

1186
00:41:56,180 --> 00:42:00,690
just some people, you know? You know. Yeah.

1187
00:42:00,740 --> 00:42:02,960
So there's a, there's a quote,

1188
00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:04,860
and I don't know who it's attributed to.

1189
00:42:04,890 --> 00:42:05,870
And even when I googled it,

1190
00:42:05,900 --> 00:42:06,920
there's like five different

1191
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:08,570
people attributed to this quote. So

1192
00:42:08,580 --> 00:42:10,200
I'm just going to say the quote, but it's like,

1193
00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:11,980
I'm a great believer in luck. The heart,

1194
00:42:12,010 --> 00:42:12,960
harder I work,

1195
00:42:13,080 --> 00:42:14,740
the more luck I have.

1196
00:42:14,890 --> 00:42:16,310
And it really

1197
00:42:16,380 --> 00:42:19,340
is important to be like, luck is, I think,

1198
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:22,080
a big factor in, like, massive success.

1199
00:42:22,160 --> 00:42:23,550
And almost anybody who,

1200
00:42:23,580 --> 00:42:25,150
if you talk to great

1201
00:42:25,220 --> 00:42:27,900
actors or musicians or millionaires,

1202
00:42:27,950 --> 00:42:29,820
they're always saying, like, you know, yeah,

1203
00:42:29,890 --> 00:42:30,890
I had a lot of things,

1204
00:42:30,940 --> 00:42:33,360
but I was at the right time, right place,

1205
00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:35,260
happened upon the right person.

1206
00:42:35,430 --> 00:42:36,900
But that means you have to get out there,

1207
00:42:36,930 --> 00:42:38,790
you have to be out working, doing your thing.

1208
00:42:38,820 --> 00:42:40,200
And you said in your story

1209
00:42:40,280 --> 00:42:42,420
how much you were kind of hustling,

1210
00:42:42,550 --> 00:42:44,370
you were out at these conventions.

1211
00:42:44,490 --> 00:42:46,630
And I think to the importance of

1212
00:42:47,050 --> 00:42:49,390
people who want to get their business or

1213
00:42:49,420 --> 00:42:51,690
get something off the ground to be going

1214
00:42:51,730 --> 00:42:53,740
to things like conventions and making

1215
00:42:53,790 --> 00:42:55,830
that initial investment or to go out there,

1216
00:42:55,860 --> 00:42:57,590
because it's not just about

1217
00:42:57,640 --> 00:42:58,890
the experience of going to a convention.

1218
00:42:58,930 --> 00:43:02,380
It's also about the possible relationships

1219
00:43:02,430 --> 00:43:04,910
and interactions that you will have

1220
00:43:05,060 --> 00:43:07,520
that winds up being the biggest game

1221
00:43:07,560 --> 00:43:09,660
changer for you in your business growth.

1222
00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:12,930
And, I mean, yeah, I can think of

1223
00:43:12,940 --> 00:43:15,050
all these times in my life where, you know,

1224
00:43:15,060 --> 00:43:16,720
I wouldn't have the job I have right now

1225
00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:19,060
if I hadn't done something that at

1226
00:43:19,070 --> 00:43:21,440
the time did not seem like it was

1227
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:23,640
important at all and then actually became

1228
00:43:23,680 --> 00:43:26,560
a core factor in my next success. You know,

1229
00:43:26,600 --> 00:43:29,030
so it's so key.

1230
00:43:29,180 --> 00:43:30,510
Luck is a function of work and.

1231
00:43:30,540 --> 00:43:34,730
Being out there in the world back in 2019.

1232
00:43:34,850 --> 00:43:37,830
So this is five years ago. It's funny, we just,

1233
00:43:39,210 --> 00:43:40,970
I was looking back at my Facebook memories,

1234
00:43:41,010 --> 00:43:41,980
and we just announced

1235
00:43:42,070 --> 00:43:44,230
our Star Trek partnership in 2019.

1236
00:43:44,570 --> 00:43:47,950
And that was another kind of weird

1237
00:43:47,980 --> 00:43:51,040
story because we had gone to me and

1238
00:43:51,190 --> 00:43:53,350
one of my operations partner at the time,

1239
00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:56,600
we went to licensing Expo in Las Vegas.

1240
00:43:56,670 --> 00:43:58,070
So if you don't know what licensing expo is,

1241
00:43:58,100 --> 00:43:59,080
for those who are listening,

1242
00:43:59,190 --> 00:44:01,170
it's basically like a comic convention,

1243
00:44:01,220 --> 00:44:04,030
but it's just for brands to show off their

1244
00:44:04,070 --> 00:44:09,050
license to get people to pick up, you know,

1245
00:44:09,180 --> 00:44:09,940
deals with them,

1246
00:44:10,010 --> 00:44:11,810
pick up their brand to do whatever.

1247
00:44:11,920 --> 00:44:12,450
So if you just

1248
00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:15,140
imagine a big convention floor, big,

1249
00:44:15,210 --> 00:44:18,620
big giant boots and small ones, and you can,

1250
00:44:18,730 --> 00:44:20,760
you can show your brand off or you

1251
00:44:20,770 --> 00:44:23,030
can try to get a meeting with a brand

1252
00:44:23,110 --> 00:44:25,540
to be able to get them to do, you know,

1253
00:44:25,610 --> 00:44:27,470
shoes or iPhone

1254
00:44:27,510 --> 00:44:30,090
cases or whatever, you know, you do. And so,

1255
00:44:31,310 --> 00:44:32,360
so we had,

1256
00:44:32,450 --> 00:44:34,210
we decided to go and.

1257
00:44:35,590 --> 00:44:37,410
But the problem was that we had no idea

1258
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:40,610
how to do this expo because basically

1259
00:44:41,270 --> 00:44:43,790
all the meetings are set beforehand.

1260
00:44:43,910 --> 00:44:45,690
So if you just show up,

1261
00:44:45,860 --> 00:44:48,770
then you can't get into any of these meetings,

1262
00:44:48,820 --> 00:44:49,610
which is what happened.

1263
00:44:49,640 --> 00:44:52,870
We got there and everyone was booked,

1264
00:44:52,930 --> 00:44:54,160
so no one was seeing anyone,

1265
00:44:54,210 --> 00:44:56,600
anyone that was of a big name, you know,

1266
00:44:56,980 --> 00:45:00,270
and which is a super bummer because we're like,

1267
00:45:00,280 --> 00:45:02,110
we made all this way, we're here, all that,

1268
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:04,200
and there was just no

1269
00:45:04,230 --> 00:45:07,360
way to get a meeting with anybody. So.

1270
00:45:09,460 --> 00:45:12,360
And the paramount,

1271
00:45:13,140 --> 00:45:14,390
I remember going to the

1272
00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:18,250
paramount booth and them saying no. And so,

1273
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:18,820
but I was

1274
00:45:18,860 --> 00:45:20,010
determined because I was like, you know what?

1275
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:20,940
I love Star Trek.

1276
00:45:20,980 --> 00:45:22,540
And at that time, in 2019,

1277
00:45:22,720 --> 00:45:24,850
Star Trek was kind of like, not, they

1278
00:45:24,860 --> 00:45:26,770
weren't doing nearly as much as they are now.

1279
00:45:26,880 --> 00:45:28,930
So this is before, like,

1280
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:30,440
even they launched Discovery also.

1281
00:45:30,490 --> 00:45:31,230
So this was still,

1282
00:45:31,270 --> 00:45:32,330
it was still pretty,

1283
00:45:32,870 --> 00:45:34,330
it was still pretty brand new,

1284
00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:35,610
or at least, you know,

1285
00:45:35,660 --> 00:45:38,210
not the current version of this. And, you know,

1286
00:45:38,240 --> 00:45:39,820
I was just determined. I was like, you know,

1287
00:45:39,850 --> 00:45:41,470
I'm just gonna find somebody

1288
00:45:41,510 --> 00:45:43,620
who's gonna talk to me. And so, you know,

1289
00:45:43,650 --> 00:45:44,430
this giant booth,

1290
00:45:44,470 --> 00:45:47,490
people going in and out of it and just

1291
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:51,340
me talking to everybody, emailing, texting,

1292
00:45:51,490 --> 00:45:53,320
talking to people that might

1293
00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:56,270
know someone at that booth. And just, I mean,

1294
00:45:56,300 --> 00:45:57,550
just spent the whole time

1295
00:45:57,620 --> 00:46:00,660
just trying to penetrate paramount.

1296
00:46:00,850 --> 00:46:05,780
And eventually this gal was like, yeah,

1297
00:46:05,810 --> 00:46:08,900
meet me, come back, meet me at, you know,

1298
00:46:08,950 --> 00:46:11,050
05:00 in the day, blah, blah, blah.

1299
00:46:11,180 --> 00:46:13,830
So I did. And, you know,

1300
00:46:13,860 --> 00:46:15,590
we chatted and hit it off, and

1301
00:46:15,700 --> 00:46:17,650
she gave me the license right then and there.

1302
00:46:17,840 --> 00:46:20,200
And it's just like, just like,

1303
00:46:20,230 --> 00:46:22,250
that just sort of, like, happened. And

1304
00:46:22,440 --> 00:46:25,470
it just worked out because she was cut sort of,

1305
00:46:25,640 --> 00:46:28,040
she was sort of ending her term at Paramount.

1306
00:46:28,090 --> 00:46:28,670
So she was trying

1307
00:46:28,680 --> 00:46:31,120
to look into land a couple last, you know,

1308
00:46:31,700 --> 00:46:34,570
last companies and, you know, again,

1309
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:36,150
timing was just sort of everything, you know,

1310
00:46:36,160 --> 00:46:37,680
she just was that other gal,

1311
00:46:37,730 --> 00:46:39,140
Warner Brothers was just coming in.

1312
00:46:39,180 --> 00:46:40,400
This gal was just coming out.

1313
00:46:40,450 --> 00:46:44,850
So she just sort of wanted to, you know,

1314
00:46:45,430 --> 00:46:47,430
get some more partners

1315
00:46:47,470 --> 00:46:49,700
into the mix before she left.

1316
00:46:49,890 --> 00:46:50,820
And just like that,

1317
00:46:50,850 --> 00:46:51,900
we just sort of, like,

1318
00:46:51,930 --> 00:46:54,750
settled it and went forward. And we, we

1319
00:46:54,790 --> 00:46:57,740
started with Star Trek in 2019. And, you know,

1320
00:46:57,770 --> 00:46:59,220
that's probably what, honestly,

1321
00:46:59,250 --> 00:47:00,090
that was probably

1322
00:47:00,160 --> 00:47:02,170
more than Marvel and DC. Marvel and DC, like,

1323
00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:03,220
was great because it, like,

1324
00:47:03,290 --> 00:47:06,850
really was during a big boom of pop culture,

1325
00:47:07,010 --> 00:47:09,540
but because my love for Star Trek, and

1326
00:47:09,670 --> 00:47:13,480
we've been with them for five years now, to me,

1327
00:47:13,520 --> 00:47:14,530
that's the brand that

1328
00:47:14,540 --> 00:47:16,260
I probably have enjoyed the most.

1329
00:47:16,310 --> 00:47:17,660
It's been most rewarding,

1330
00:47:17,790 --> 00:47:18,610
the brand that I've

1331
00:47:18,620 --> 00:47:20,580
been able to connect most with, the fans.

1332
00:47:20,920 --> 00:47:22,380
And I'm just so

1333
00:47:22,410 --> 00:47:24,620
grateful for the past five years. But again,

1334
00:47:24,670 --> 00:47:26,260
another example of just, like,

1335
00:47:27,480 --> 00:47:28,360
just having

1336
00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:30,730
nothing and just hustling, hustling,

1337
00:47:30,780 --> 00:47:34,020
hustling until somebody said, yes.

1338
00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:38,380
Well, it's a great franchise because they

1339
00:47:38,430 --> 00:47:41,140
practically changed their uniforms every.

1340
00:47:43,280 --> 00:47:44,020
So you,

1341
00:47:44,090 --> 00:47:46,180
you have something on your social media

1342
00:47:46,230 --> 00:47:48,780
that I've seen you talk about the booth,

1343
00:47:48,830 --> 00:47:50,530
and you also talk about something.

1344
00:47:50,660 --> 00:47:54,560
Enter the energized lounge. What.

1345
00:47:54,680 --> 00:47:55,900
Can you elaborate on that?

1346
00:47:55,930 --> 00:48:01,190
Coming up is San Diego Comic Con. Is if you,

1347
00:48:01,350 --> 00:48:03,480
anyone listening who's not been to Comic Con,

1348
00:48:03,610 --> 00:48:06,530
what sets San Diego apart from other show

1349
00:48:06,580 --> 00:48:09,830
is that it's not just the big convention

1350
00:48:09,870 --> 00:48:11,520
center and everything that's happening inside.

1351
00:48:11,570 --> 00:48:12,260
Everyone always hears

1352
00:48:12,290 --> 00:48:14,530
about things like Hall H and, you know,

1353
00:48:14,580 --> 00:48:16,300
all the booths and all that.

1354
00:48:16,410 --> 00:48:18,210
But what makes San Diego so special

1355
00:48:18,260 --> 00:48:21,640
is that there's a tremendous

1356
00:48:21,690 --> 00:48:24,690
amount of off site activations, which,

1357
00:48:24,720 --> 00:48:25,330
what we call them,

1358
00:48:25,360 --> 00:48:26,930
they're basically pop up shots

1359
00:48:27,050 --> 00:48:30,200
that happen all across the city,

1360
00:48:30,540 --> 00:48:32,560
hosted by all these big brands like

1361
00:48:32,610 --> 00:48:35,000
Amazon and Sony and all these other brands.

1362
00:48:35,070 --> 00:48:38,340
And they range from being giants

1363
00:48:38,500 --> 00:48:41,370
where they have big circus tents or they

1364
00:48:41,400 --> 00:48:43,660
take over a warehouse building or whatever,

1365
00:48:43,780 --> 00:48:45,560
to small and intimate.

1366
00:48:45,730 --> 00:48:50,080
And so after years of doing Comic Con,

1367
00:48:50,660 --> 00:48:52,250
we used to host a bunch of, like,

1368
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:54,460
private events, after parties,

1369
00:48:54,530 --> 00:48:56,380
anniversary parties and all that stuff.

1370
00:48:56,510 --> 00:48:58,980
And I've always wanted to host a off

1371
00:48:59,010 --> 00:49:03,070
site activation again through this process.

1372
00:49:03,140 --> 00:49:05,420
I was, like, very fearful. I was like,

1373
00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:07,940
if we made something that was

1374
00:49:07,970 --> 00:49:09,620
open for five days during the week,

1375
00:49:09,650 --> 00:49:10,830
would anyone even come?

1376
00:49:10,900 --> 00:49:12,340
Would they even care?

1377
00:49:12,680 --> 00:49:14,310
It's going to cost a bunch of money,

1378
00:49:14,380 --> 00:49:15,450
and it's going to cost a lot

1379
00:49:15,460 --> 00:49:17,570
of resources into my personal time.

1380
00:49:17,700 --> 00:49:19,550
Is anyone going to even,

1381
00:49:19,670 --> 00:49:21,930
is this going to matter to anybody?

1382
00:49:22,750 --> 00:49:24,380
So last year we did it,

1383
00:49:24,410 --> 00:49:25,460
and it was great.

1384
00:49:25,650 --> 00:49:28,650
It's basically a Star Trek themed coffee

1385
00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:32,330
shop about the size of a Starbucks and

1386
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:36,580
where we serve Star Trek themed coffees.

1387
00:49:36,730 --> 00:49:38,240
And then we were partnered with a

1388
00:49:38,250 --> 00:49:40,430
bunch of other Star Trek licensees

1389
00:49:40,590 --> 00:49:43,540
where they had their merchandise,

1390
00:49:43,690 --> 00:49:45,520
promoting their merchandise.

1391
00:49:45,690 --> 00:49:46,350
And of course,

1392
00:49:46,380 --> 00:49:49,310
we have our merchandise as well. And, you know,

1393
00:49:49,730 --> 00:49:50,890
during Comic Con,

1394
00:49:51,010 --> 00:49:52,200
if you've been before, you know,

1395
00:49:52,230 --> 00:49:53,190
it's super exhausting.

1396
00:49:53,240 --> 00:49:55,530
It's hot and it's just like, long days.

1397
00:49:55,650 --> 00:49:57,350
So be able to come in,

1398
00:49:57,730 --> 00:50:00,550
sit down in air conditioning, have a coffee,

1399
00:50:01,170 --> 00:50:03,130
connect with other fans that are there

1400
00:50:03,250 --> 00:50:06,070
who are also probably Trekkies as well.

1401
00:50:07,250 --> 00:50:08,530
It turned out to be a great thing.

1402
00:50:08,570 --> 00:50:10,570
It was a big success last year,

1403
00:50:10,650 --> 00:50:14,170
and so much so that we're back this year.

1404
00:50:14,220 --> 00:50:16,720
So the energized lounge is the idea of

1405
00:50:16,890 --> 00:50:18,860
using the term energized for Star Trek,

1406
00:50:18,890 --> 00:50:21,110
but then getting energized by caffeine,

1407
00:50:21,270 --> 00:50:23,140
by relationships, by, you know,

1408
00:50:23,170 --> 00:50:24,200
all that sort of stuff. So, you know,

1409
00:50:24,210 --> 00:50:25,190
you leave energized.

1410
00:50:25,270 --> 00:50:26,140
Oh, I love that.

1411
00:50:26,250 --> 00:50:26,930
Love that.

1412
00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:27,990
I didn't clue into

1413
00:50:28,030 --> 00:50:29,650
that immediately when I said it,

1414
00:50:29,680 --> 00:50:31,460
but now that you explain it,

1415
00:50:31,530 --> 00:50:33,130
and I also love the aspect that you're

1416
00:50:33,180 --> 00:50:35,100
sharing the burden with these

1417
00:50:35,170 --> 00:50:37,450
other licensees and franchises

1418
00:50:37,480 --> 00:50:39,700
that are not franchises, but licensees.

1419
00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:41,310
You're sharing it with them and

1420
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:44,880
you're creating this community space.

1421
00:50:45,030 --> 00:50:46,740
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, and that's

1422
00:50:46,780 --> 00:50:49,680
part of the bring value to

1423
00:50:50,260 --> 00:50:53,520
the brand because as much as Star

1424
00:50:53,550 --> 00:50:55,280
Trek is important to paramount, you know, they

1425
00:50:55,290 --> 00:50:57,440
don't necessarily have the resources to, like,

1426
00:50:57,550 --> 00:50:58,550
let's create a space.

1427
00:50:58,600 --> 00:50:59,560
Let's bring all these,

1428
00:50:59,630 --> 00:51:01,900
these license licensees in there

1429
00:51:02,020 --> 00:51:04,000
that's like, blah, blah, blah, Comic Con. Like,

1430
00:51:04,050 --> 00:51:05,120
they just don't have the time

1431
00:51:05,150 --> 00:51:06,810
and resources to do something like that.

1432
00:51:06,930 --> 00:51:09,050
And so if I can help create

1433
00:51:09,090 --> 00:51:11,480
that space and it benefits not

1434
00:51:11,510 --> 00:51:13,790
just other licensees but also paramount,

1435
00:51:13,940 --> 00:51:16,830
now that sort of positions our brand to be, oh,

1436
00:51:16,880 --> 00:51:19,490
they have more value than just creating

1437
00:51:19,530 --> 00:51:22,610
jackets or paying a royalty check,

1438
00:51:22,690 --> 00:51:25,280
but they actually are creating something for

1439
00:51:25,310 --> 00:51:27,280
the community that the fans are talking about,

1440
00:51:27,390 --> 00:51:28,580
that the fans are

1441
00:51:28,590 --> 00:51:30,210
wanting to see year after year.

1442
00:51:30,370 --> 00:51:33,090
So, you know, there's multiple levels to that.

1443
00:51:33,200 --> 00:51:36,610
And I can order a rock to Gino at this.

1444
00:51:36,800 --> 00:51:38,430
I'm assuming I've got to be

1445
00:51:38,440 --> 00:51:40,600
able to get a rock to Geno coffee, right?

1446
00:51:40,790 --> 00:51:42,170
Yeah, you got it.

1447
00:51:42,360 --> 00:51:44,240
Awesome. That's, that's amazing.

1448
00:51:44,620 --> 00:51:46,220
I've never been to comic Con, but it's,

1449
00:51:46,260 --> 00:51:48,750
it's on my, my list of, like, you know,

1450
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:52,200
dream things to get done. And this just,

1451
00:51:52,310 --> 00:51:54,400
that also just got added is to have a rock

1452
00:51:54,410 --> 00:51:56,550
to Gino at one of these energized lounges.

1453
00:51:56,640 --> 00:51:58,400
I didn't realize how much I wanted it

1454
00:51:58,430 --> 00:52:01,240
until you mentioned that there is a cafe

1455
00:52:01,340 --> 00:52:04,010
themed after Star Trek. And I'm like, oh, man,

1456
00:52:04,140 --> 00:52:06,130
I might just have to fly down just for that.

1457
00:52:06,180 --> 00:52:07,700
Yeah, yeah. It's a blast.

1458
00:52:07,750 --> 00:52:10,220
And we have this. This year,

1459
00:52:11,320 --> 00:52:12,400
we took it to the next level,

1460
00:52:12,440 --> 00:52:15,180
where some of the brands are.

1461
00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:18,220
They're releasing product

1462
00:52:18,290 --> 00:52:20,000
there that's never been seen before

1463
00:52:20,080 --> 00:52:22,540
by the public. And so, you know, brand new.

1464
00:52:22,590 --> 00:52:24,870
So Star Trek wines,

1465
00:52:24,940 --> 00:52:26,660
the Star Trek cruise,

1466
00:52:26,860 --> 00:52:29,870
and a company called the one company are each

1467
00:52:30,490 --> 00:52:32,460
revealing merch that you can see for the

1468
00:52:32,470 --> 00:52:35,280
first time in person and order. So it's. So.

1469
00:52:35,310 --> 00:52:36,470
It's really fun because

1470
00:52:37,890 --> 00:52:39,600
now it's beyond just, like,

1471
00:52:39,630 --> 00:52:40,710
a hangout coffee place,

1472
00:52:40,740 --> 00:52:42,600
but it's actually a place to find

1473
00:52:42,750 --> 00:52:45,100
the latest and greatest Star Trek merch.

1474
00:52:45,190 --> 00:52:47,310
That's so cool. So cool.

1475
00:52:47,360 --> 00:52:48,470
That's really cool.

1476
00:52:49,010 --> 00:52:50,150
It's amazing.

1477
00:52:50,690 --> 00:52:52,400
Well, Chris, do you have anything else

1478
00:52:52,430 --> 00:52:53,260
you want to go over right

1479
00:52:53,270 --> 00:52:55,100
now before we jump into random rolls?

1480
00:52:55,190 --> 00:52:57,090
I think we're probably about that time.

1481
00:52:57,260 --> 00:53:00,040
The random rolls is a bit of a silly,

1482
00:53:00,210 --> 00:53:02,530
less serious and fun or less.

1483
00:53:02,620 --> 00:53:03,260
Okay.

1484
00:53:03,410 --> 00:53:05,240
The random rules is less serious

1485
00:53:05,330 --> 00:53:07,450
and more fun of a section where

1486
00:53:07,480 --> 00:53:08,800
pretty much you're going to roll the dice.

1487
00:53:08,890 --> 00:53:10,810
And we have a chart based on your number.

1488
00:53:10,900 --> 00:53:13,190
We're going to ask you a question.

1489
00:53:13,310 --> 00:53:15,050
We'll do this back and forth a couple times.

1490
00:53:15,120 --> 00:53:17,170
So go ahead and roll it for the first time.

1491
00:53:17,320 --> 00:53:20,220
All right, here we go. Landed on 80.

1492
00:53:20,330 --> 00:53:21,370
The number 80.

1493
00:53:21,670 --> 00:53:24,770
80. All right.

1494
00:53:25,510 --> 00:53:28,620
If you could be any fictional villain,

1495
00:53:28,810 --> 00:53:30,130
who would you be?

1496
00:53:31,510 --> 00:53:36,190
Oh, man. Fictional villain. Okay,

1497
00:53:36,230 --> 00:53:38,930
so this may be a little bit too on the nose,

1498
00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:41,280
but how awesome would

1499
00:53:41,290 --> 00:53:45,650
it be to be con from Star Trek?

1500
00:53:46,270 --> 00:53:48,390
We're all waiting for him to say that. Yeah,

1501
00:53:48,430 --> 00:53:49,100
I thought he was going to.

1502
00:53:49,130 --> 00:53:50,250
Scream it, actually,

1503
00:53:51,730 --> 00:53:52,550
but for someone who.

1504
00:53:52,560 --> 00:53:56,240
Just, like, loves life and is so, you know,

1505
00:53:56,270 --> 00:53:58,850
of course he's seething with anger, but. But,

1506
00:53:58,890 --> 00:54:00,250
you know, he just is so, like,

1507
00:54:00,290 --> 00:54:03,810
just a rich character. So fun. And I think,

1508
00:54:03,850 --> 00:54:04,470
still one of the best

1509
00:54:04,500 --> 00:54:06,160
villains ever in cinematic history.

1510
00:54:06,270 --> 00:54:09,190
Yeah. So smart and deadly, you know?

1511
00:54:10,810 --> 00:54:13,570
Oh, yeah, that's right. I saw on your instagram

1512
00:54:13,610 --> 00:54:16,600
you actually had a pun about Comic Con,

1513
00:54:16,790 --> 00:54:19,040
and I thought that was hilarious.

1514
00:54:19,940 --> 00:54:21,570
I've never seen that. That's fantastic.

1515
00:54:21,640 --> 00:54:21,930
Yeah.

1516
00:54:22,000 --> 00:54:22,520
All right,

1517
00:54:22,630 --> 00:54:24,370
we'll go ahead and roll one more time.

1518
00:54:24,560 --> 00:54:25,710
In fact, here,

1519
00:54:25,720 --> 00:54:27,160
I'll sneak peek for your

1520
00:54:30,780 --> 00:54:32,520
exclusive pin for this year.

1521
00:54:33,900 --> 00:54:35,440
Oh, look at that.

1522
00:54:38,060 --> 00:54:40,270
That is so good. I. You're

1523
00:54:40,280 --> 00:54:42,100
gonna have to go check out the YouTube for.

1524
00:54:42,180 --> 00:54:43,180
For this listeners,

1525
00:54:43,270 --> 00:54:44,070
just so you know,

1526
00:54:44,140 --> 00:54:45,940
just so you can see the exclusive.

1527
00:54:46,560 --> 00:54:50,580
Okay, here we go. Rolling again. 53.

1528
00:54:51,200 --> 00:54:51,700
All right.

1529
00:54:51,750 --> 00:54:55,340
53. Perfect. It is a Star Trek question. So,

1530
00:54:55,960 --> 00:54:56,900
in Star Trek,

1531
00:54:56,950 --> 00:54:59,430
there are six divisions. Science, medicine,

1532
00:54:59,500 --> 00:55:02,220
command, con, security, and engineering.

1533
00:55:02,370 --> 00:55:05,060
Which division would you train into?

1534
00:55:05,880 --> 00:55:07,830
Oh, well, command for sure. I mean,

1535
00:55:07,860 --> 00:55:09,060
you got this. You

1536
00:55:09,070 --> 00:55:12,420
got to be the run the ship. You can't. Yeah.

1537
00:55:12,590 --> 00:55:13,680
As an entrepreneur,

1538
00:55:13,750 --> 00:55:15,590
I think that totally makes sense, right?

1539
00:55:15,640 --> 00:55:16,750
Yeah, it sure does.

1540
00:55:16,840 --> 00:55:18,710
And a bit of a kirk, if you will,

1541
00:55:18,760 --> 00:55:21,230
the way your story went. Just like,

1542
00:55:21,570 --> 00:55:23,470
fake it till you make it, right.

1543
00:55:23,660 --> 00:55:24,910
Yeah, yeah.

1544
00:55:26,610 --> 00:55:27,890
So in the next section we're going

1545
00:55:27,890 --> 00:55:30,140
to move into is called rapid fire. These are

1546
00:55:30,190 --> 00:55:35,760
quick and silly questions. For example, well,

1547
00:55:35,870 --> 00:55:37,880
I always ask Star Trek or Star wars,

1548
00:55:37,930 --> 00:55:39,600
but I feel like I know the answer.

1549
00:55:40,780 --> 00:55:41,610
I'm a big time

1550
00:55:41,640 --> 00:55:44,520
Star wars fan, and so, I mean, it. It would.

1551
00:55:44,630 --> 00:55:46,880
Whilst Trek would definitely edge it out.

1552
00:55:47,780 --> 00:55:49,040
I love Star wars.

1553
00:55:49,130 --> 00:55:50,880
Not necessarily in its current iteration.

1554
00:55:50,930 --> 00:55:53,040
I'm not a super fan of kind of what's

1555
00:55:53,070 --> 00:55:56,520
happening these days, but, man, there's like,

1556
00:55:56,710 --> 00:55:58,240
when Force Awakens first came

1557
00:55:58,270 --> 00:56:01,010
out and just sort of like that, the waiting,

1558
00:56:01,060 --> 00:56:02,950
anticipation and being in the theater

1559
00:56:02,990 --> 00:56:04,760
for the first time and all that. Like,

1560
00:56:04,890 --> 00:56:05,790
you just can't,

1561
00:56:05,870 --> 00:56:07,550
whether Star Trek or any other franchise,

1562
00:56:07,590 --> 00:56:08,980
you really could not,

1563
00:56:09,130 --> 00:56:11,950
you can't replicate that sort of that

1564
00:56:12,110 --> 00:56:15,650
shared love and buzz from Star wars fans.

1565
00:56:15,720 --> 00:56:16,090
So.

1566
00:56:16,180 --> 00:56:17,510
Yeah, yeah, 100%.

1567
00:56:17,550 --> 00:56:19,530
Yeah, I get that. Yeah.

1568
00:56:19,660 --> 00:56:22,730
So who's your favorite Star Trek captain then?

1569
00:56:24,150 --> 00:56:25,930
Picard for sure. Although, you know,

1570
00:56:25,960 --> 00:56:26,740
Pike's on the rise.

1571
00:56:26,770 --> 00:56:28,500
I really do love this strange new worlds.

1572
00:56:28,530 --> 00:56:30,880
But Picard is like, he's, he's,

1573
00:56:31,000 --> 00:56:32,350
he's unbeatable for sure.

1574
00:56:32,460 --> 00:56:34,220
I'm with you on that. Now,

1575
00:56:34,350 --> 00:56:36,850
who is your favorite in that same vein,

1576
00:56:36,900 --> 00:56:39,340
who's your favorite number one in command?

1577
00:56:41,200 --> 00:56:43,270
Oh, number. You mean

1578
00:56:43,300 --> 00:56:44,570
first office first officers?

1579
00:56:44,580 --> 00:56:45,500
Are you're asking. Yeah.

1580
00:56:45,530 --> 00:56:46,140
Yeah.

1581
00:56:51,400 --> 00:56:51,830
Man.

1582
00:56:51,900 --> 00:56:53,450
Because you got Spock,

1583
00:56:53,640 --> 00:56:56,270
you got oona in strange new worlds.

1584
00:56:56,350 --> 00:56:59,330
You got Riker, Kira.

1585
00:57:00,310 --> 00:57:03,380
Yeah. Chakota. You know what? I. This is, this,

1586
00:57:03,450 --> 00:57:05,930
this might be a little unconventional,

1587
00:57:05,980 --> 00:57:09,950
but I just finished doing the rewatch of,

1588
00:57:09,990 --> 00:57:13,690
I told you about this Star Trek Enterprise,

1589
00:57:14,270 --> 00:57:16,130
and I think it's to Paul.

1590
00:57:16,200 --> 00:57:17,860
I think that her character, I think,

1591
00:57:17,890 --> 00:57:19,810
was the most interesting one on the show.

1592
00:57:21,110 --> 00:57:25,700
And I would have loved to see kind of where her

1593
00:57:25,730 --> 00:57:30,010
journey sort of took her. But I think, to me,

1594
00:57:30,390 --> 00:57:31,920
first officers work the best when

1595
00:57:31,930 --> 00:57:33,640
they are really at odds with the captain.

1596
00:57:33,730 --> 00:57:34,430
Not necessarily

1597
00:57:34,470 --> 00:57:35,850
like they don't like each other, but then.

1598
00:57:35,940 --> 00:57:36,660
But they just have to

1599
00:57:36,690 --> 00:57:38,530
have two different type of ideals.

1600
00:57:38,700 --> 00:57:40,850
They have to have conflicting philosophies.

1601
00:57:40,980 --> 00:57:44,040
Friction. Friction. Yeah, friction. And so,

1602
00:57:44,090 --> 00:57:45,210
in each of those,

1603
00:57:45,670 --> 00:57:46,770
each of the series,

1604
00:57:47,810 --> 00:57:48,850
they each had some

1605
00:57:48,890 --> 00:57:50,180
level of friction here or there,

1606
00:57:50,230 --> 00:57:51,110
but for the most part,

1607
00:57:51,140 --> 00:57:52,860
they kind of got along. You know,

1608
00:57:52,870 --> 00:57:55,110
they were like trusted confidants, whatever.

1609
00:57:55,260 --> 00:57:56,790
But I feel like on enterprise,

1610
00:57:56,860 --> 00:57:59,630
while the overall series was not super strong,

1611
00:57:59,930 --> 00:58:01,680
the friction between those two,

1612
00:58:01,750 --> 00:58:03,670
Archer and DePaul, you know,

1613
00:58:03,700 --> 00:58:05,690
I feel like that it was awesome. Like,

1614
00:58:05,730 --> 00:58:08,630
it was like they really made it tough and

1615
00:58:08,760 --> 00:58:10,370
I think makes for an interesting storytelling.

1616
00:58:10,410 --> 00:58:11,620
So I was Paul.

1617
00:58:11,710 --> 00:58:12,300
Yeah. Especially

1618
00:58:12,350 --> 00:58:13,950
with that dynamic of, you know, we're

1619
00:58:13,960 --> 00:58:15,710
going to lose some viewers going deep here,

1620
00:58:15,740 --> 00:58:17,030
but the vulcan

1621
00:58:17,100 --> 00:58:20,520
humanity dynamic and that, like, you know,

1622
00:58:20,530 --> 00:58:23,420
the Vulcans did see themselves as better and,

1623
00:58:23,490 --> 00:58:25,940
and how those two in leadership

1624
00:58:26,010 --> 00:58:27,530
had to work together on one of the first,

1625
00:58:27,600 --> 00:58:30,130
or pretty much the first ship from Earth.

1626
00:58:30,300 --> 00:58:31,320
And I think that

1627
00:58:31,450 --> 00:58:33,350
particularly now is so relevant.

1628
00:58:33,390 --> 00:58:34,720
That whole idea of, like,

1629
00:58:34,810 --> 00:58:36,940
how can I work with somebody that

1630
00:58:36,970 --> 00:58:40,140
I don't like or agree with and, you know,

1631
00:58:40,170 --> 00:58:41,210
how can we get along?

1632
00:58:41,280 --> 00:58:41,930
And I think there's,

1633
00:58:41,960 --> 00:58:43,500
that's more relevant today than I,

1634
00:58:43,520 --> 00:58:44,520
it's ever been.

1635
00:58:45,380 --> 00:58:45,880
Yeah.

1636
00:58:45,950 --> 00:58:47,880
And T'Paul's easy to look at,

1637
00:58:47,910 --> 00:58:49,160
so you know that.

1638
00:58:49,820 --> 00:58:51,580
Yeah. Star Trek boys has someone

1639
00:58:51,660 --> 00:58:54,800
like that in every show. Yeah.

1640
00:58:55,420 --> 00:58:58,080
So what would be your most

1641
00:58:58,740 --> 00:59:02,200
iconic Star Trek one liner?

1642
00:59:04,420 --> 00:59:07,160
Oh, my gosh. Killing me here.

1643
00:59:08,980 --> 00:59:10,880
Most iconic one liner.

1644
00:59:11,310 --> 00:59:14,570
I probably would say out of TNG,

1645
00:59:15,190 --> 00:59:19,520
the season three. Yesterday's Enterprise.

1646
00:59:19,690 --> 00:59:21,850
When Picard is about to

1647
00:59:22,190 --> 00:59:24,090
make a big stand with Enterprise,

1648
00:59:24,260 --> 00:59:28,170
he says in a announcement to the crew,

1649
00:59:28,360 --> 00:59:29,990
let's make sure that history

1650
00:59:30,070 --> 00:59:33,050
never forgets the name Enterprise. And

1651
00:59:33,430 --> 00:59:37,790
I just feel like that's such a great, you know,

1652
00:59:38,130 --> 00:59:41,040
whether you're a fan or you

1653
00:59:41,070 --> 00:59:43,340
make jackets like I do, you think yourselves,

1654
00:59:43,390 --> 00:59:44,580
let's make sure that history

1655
00:59:44,630 --> 00:59:46,310
never forgets the name Enterprise.

1656
00:59:46,730 --> 00:59:48,070
I love that. That's awesome.

1657
00:59:48,160 --> 00:59:51,750
Yeah. Well, I'm gonna steer it away

1658
00:59:51,840 --> 00:59:54,710
from Star Trek for a minute. Would you.

1659
00:59:54,880 --> 00:59:58,370
You said DC Comics was your first love.

1660
00:59:58,450 --> 00:59:58,710
Yeah.

1661
00:59:58,740 --> 01:00:02,150
So which superhero is it in DC Comics?

1662
01:00:02,220 --> 01:00:02,910
That is the one.

1663
01:00:02,940 --> 01:00:05,800
Oh, Superman for sure. Yeah. So when I was,

1664
01:00:05,950 --> 01:00:08,930
when I was really young, we, my parents,

1665
01:00:09,090 --> 01:00:10,000
so before I was born,

1666
01:00:10,030 --> 01:00:13,750
my parents moved from Korea to Dallas, Texas.

1667
01:00:13,780 --> 01:00:14,950
And then I was born,

1668
01:00:15,250 --> 01:00:18,040
and like I said, there was, like,

1669
01:00:18,230 --> 01:00:19,610
nobody that looked like

1670
01:00:19,650 --> 01:00:21,950
me that I went to school with. And

1671
01:00:23,850 --> 01:00:25,540
as results, you know, it's like,

1672
01:00:25,630 --> 01:00:26,640
experienced a lot of bullying

1673
01:00:26,670 --> 01:00:28,530
and racism and all that sort of stuff.

1674
01:00:28,650 --> 01:00:30,130
So as a result, I, like,

1675
01:00:30,170 --> 01:00:33,280
retreated into what I found a lot of, a lot

1676
01:00:33,290 --> 01:00:35,300
of comfort in is comic books. And, you know,

1677
01:00:35,330 --> 01:00:39,640
as I'm reading Superman, I was like, wow.

1678
01:00:39,690 --> 01:00:42,460
Like, here's this dude. He's like a, he's from,

1679
01:00:42,530 --> 01:00:44,330
he's an immigrant from another planet,

1680
01:00:44,750 --> 01:00:46,710
and he's living in this

1681
01:00:46,750 --> 01:00:48,920
world where he just wants to fit in.

1682
01:00:49,090 --> 01:00:50,890
He's not fully a part of this world.

1683
01:00:50,920 --> 01:00:52,330
He's kind of a part of another world.

1684
01:00:52,380 --> 01:00:54,330
He's part of two worlds, basically.

1685
01:00:54,910 --> 01:00:56,290
And he just kind of wanted,

1686
01:00:56,340 --> 01:00:57,090
wants to find his

1687
01:00:57,120 --> 01:00:59,220
place and purpose in this life. And he knows.

1688
01:00:59,290 --> 01:01:01,480
He knows he's got potential

1689
01:01:01,550 --> 01:01:04,110
to be something greater than a small,

1690
01:01:04,300 --> 01:01:07,800
little kid in Smallville. And, you know,

1691
01:01:07,830 --> 01:01:09,270
reading those stories as a kid,

1692
01:01:09,320 --> 01:01:10,370
I was like, wow. Like,

1693
01:01:10,450 --> 01:01:11,720
that really resonated with me.

1694
01:01:11,750 --> 01:01:14,340
Like, I really felt like, you know, I really,

1695
01:01:14,390 --> 01:01:15,060
from that point on,

1696
01:01:15,070 --> 01:01:16,230
I dove into comics and

1697
01:01:16,240 --> 01:01:18,030
I kind of make a joke about how, like,

1698
01:01:18,650 --> 01:01:20,640
Superman and Wonder Woman were

1699
01:01:20,670 --> 01:01:22,300
like my parents, you know, because they, like,

1700
01:01:22,390 --> 01:01:23,180
I feel like

1701
01:01:23,270 --> 01:01:25,600
that comics at that time really, like,

1702
01:01:25,750 --> 01:01:27,590
raised me in some ways and

1703
01:01:27,640 --> 01:01:30,080
informed who I would become as an adult.

1704
01:01:30,270 --> 01:01:31,710
So Superman had a big, played

1705
01:01:31,740 --> 01:01:33,880
a big part in that. You know, I really, like,

1706
01:01:33,950 --> 01:01:36,860
kind of identified with his,

1707
01:01:37,030 --> 01:01:38,790
with his life as an immigrant.

1708
01:01:40,250 --> 01:01:42,750
We sometimes ask people what they're,

1709
01:01:44,170 --> 01:01:45,460
if they could have a superpower,

1710
01:01:45,510 --> 01:01:47,350
what superpower would they pick? But

1711
01:01:47,380 --> 01:01:49,630
I want to bring it back to something different.

1712
01:01:50,250 --> 01:01:51,750
If you could pick a technology

1713
01:01:53,010 --> 01:01:55,490
that we could have now could be from Star

1714
01:01:55,530 --> 01:01:57,430
Trek or Star wars or something else like that,

1715
01:01:57,500 --> 01:01:59,750
what technology would you pick?

1716
01:02:01,050 --> 01:02:02,550
Well, it'd be hard to beat

1717
01:02:03,130 --> 01:02:05,000
with as much traveling as I do, it'd be

1718
01:02:05,030 --> 01:02:07,830
pretty hard to beat a transporter technology.

1719
01:02:09,450 --> 01:02:11,670
Never deal with an airport again.

1720
01:02:11,860 --> 01:02:13,440
Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

1721
01:02:13,550 --> 01:02:15,600
that would be so game changing. I mean,

1722
01:02:15,750 --> 01:02:16,830
they make it too easy now

1723
01:02:16,860 --> 01:02:19,100
because on the new Picard series,

1724
01:02:19,260 --> 01:02:20,470
they basically have, like,

1725
01:02:20,520 --> 01:02:22,040
archways and you just sort of, like,

1726
01:02:22,070 --> 01:02:23,120
you don't even stand on a pad.

1727
01:02:23,170 --> 01:02:24,510
You just kind of walk through it

1728
01:02:24,520 --> 01:02:26,960
and you end up in another city, which I'm like,

1729
01:02:27,050 --> 01:02:29,370
that is to have that sort

1730
01:02:29,400 --> 01:02:32,720
of ability to, like, you know, be somewhere,

1731
01:02:32,770 --> 01:02:35,720
anywhere instantaneously. Wow. Like,

1732
01:02:36,060 --> 01:02:38,240
that would just be, you know, incredible.

1733
01:02:38,330 --> 01:02:40,840
So with that aside, even to say, okay,

1734
01:02:40,890 --> 01:02:43,120
that's going to be nearly impossible.

1735
01:02:43,290 --> 01:02:44,600
That will never happen.

1736
01:02:44,990 --> 01:02:47,140
A replicator is actually happening, you know,

1737
01:02:47,170 --> 01:02:48,410
these 3d printers,

1738
01:02:48,560 --> 01:02:50,310
and then when you even get into, like,

1739
01:02:50,470 --> 01:02:51,410
they're replicating,

1740
01:02:51,480 --> 01:02:54,030
starting to replicate, like, you know,

1741
01:02:54,070 --> 01:02:54,570
meat and

1742
01:02:54,600 --> 01:02:56,450
all that sort of stuff. I'm like, wow. Like,

1743
01:02:56,560 --> 01:02:58,120
we actually will probably

1744
01:02:58,170 --> 01:03:00,640
never get to transporter place, a

1745
01:03:00,650 --> 01:03:04,170
place where we use transporters. But, you know,

1746
01:03:04,200 --> 01:03:05,860
replicators could be a real thing. You know,

1747
01:03:05,890 --> 01:03:07,870
we now have communicators through

1748
01:03:07,910 --> 01:03:10,580
phones and some level of tricorder

1749
01:03:10,610 --> 01:03:13,240
at some level. But, man, like, replicator,

1750
01:03:13,310 --> 01:03:14,470
we can you know,

1751
01:03:14,580 --> 01:03:16,310
that's something that's within reason.

1752
01:03:16,400 --> 01:03:17,210
Within our lifetime,

1753
01:03:17,250 --> 01:03:18,110
we might have some.

1754
01:03:18,160 --> 01:03:19,310
Version of that

1755
01:03:20,370 --> 01:03:23,190
could really address food hung, food shortages.

1756
01:03:23,490 --> 01:03:26,030
Yeah, totally, totally. Yeah.

1757
01:03:26,650 --> 01:03:28,450
And so for my final question,

1758
01:03:28,570 --> 01:03:33,310
I'll say fear the AI or embrace the AI.

1759
01:03:35,010 --> 01:03:35,510
I think it's

1760
01:03:35,520 --> 01:03:37,070
a really important question, actually,

1761
01:03:37,700 --> 01:03:38,560
and not to get,

1762
01:03:38,650 --> 01:03:43,150
make it drawn out, but, you know, we as,

1763
01:03:43,240 --> 01:03:45,150
whether it's pop culture or as a society,

1764
01:03:45,200 --> 01:03:46,680
we're all talking about, we love change,

1765
01:03:46,750 --> 01:03:48,080
we want to progress, blah, blah, blah.

1766
01:03:48,110 --> 01:03:49,930
But when change actually happens,

1767
01:03:50,080 --> 01:03:53,800
everyone fights it. Right. And historically,

1768
01:03:56,540 --> 01:03:59,210
being on the side of resisting change typically

1769
01:03:59,320 --> 01:04:02,590
has not fared well for anybody. And so,

1770
01:04:02,760 --> 01:04:05,640
so I do think AI is here to certainly level,

1771
01:04:05,690 --> 01:04:07,950
and it's going to only continue so we can,

1772
01:04:08,080 --> 01:04:09,870
we can try to suppress it,

1773
01:04:10,040 --> 01:04:12,830
and eventually Skynet will birth and Skynet

1774
01:04:12,840 --> 01:04:14,700
will take over the world and kill them humans.

1775
01:04:14,820 --> 01:04:16,670
Or we can say, hey, like,

1776
01:04:16,800 --> 01:04:19,100
there's a way to utilize AI in a way

1777
01:04:19,140 --> 01:04:21,120
that is helpful and beneficial for mankind.

1778
01:04:21,270 --> 01:04:23,280
So the only, I've not,

1779
01:04:23,410 --> 01:04:25,840
I definitely feel attention of how artists

1780
01:04:25,910 --> 01:04:28,530
feel AI is imposing on their work, for sure.

1781
01:04:28,680 --> 01:04:30,730
But I've been using it a

1782
01:04:30,760 --> 01:04:32,980
little bit on some of my writing, like you can,

1783
01:04:33,020 --> 01:04:35,400
because whenever we're doing marketing pitches

1784
01:04:35,430 --> 01:04:37,410
and all that stuff and posting things online,

1785
01:04:37,530 --> 01:04:38,960
there's some AI tools that will

1786
01:04:38,990 --> 01:04:40,910
help you craft in a way that

1787
01:04:40,940 --> 01:04:42,740
just makes more sense for the audience.

1788
01:04:42,790 --> 01:04:44,550
It's more quippy, it's more clever.

1789
01:04:44,680 --> 01:04:46,690
And so I've been using a little bit of that.

1790
01:04:46,810 --> 01:04:48,160
But I do think that while

1791
01:04:48,190 --> 01:04:50,580
I don't know answers or whatever,

1792
01:04:50,630 --> 01:04:53,050
that we do have to say

1793
01:04:53,090 --> 01:04:56,150
yes to AI to a certain degree,

1794
01:04:56,260 --> 01:04:58,720
or else we will become their slaves

1795
01:04:58,790 --> 01:05:01,170
and they will take over us anyway.

1796
01:05:01,210 --> 01:05:02,200
So, yeah,

1797
01:05:02,350 --> 01:05:04,730
I appreciate that perspective that, you know,

1798
01:05:04,770 --> 01:05:05,810
by embracing it,

1799
01:05:05,850 --> 01:05:07,350
we will work in harmony

1800
01:05:08,010 --> 01:05:09,800
as opposed to fighting it,

1801
01:05:09,830 --> 01:05:11,590
and we will probably lose.

1802
01:05:12,210 --> 01:05:14,780
But I do feel for the visual artists

1803
01:05:14,830 --> 01:05:17,780
who are losing their jobs, AI, and, you know,

1804
01:05:17,790 --> 01:05:20,000
I've seen that already happen, like,

1805
01:05:20,190 --> 01:05:21,470
very directly,

1806
01:05:21,640 --> 01:05:22,340
and I'm not

1807
01:05:22,350 --> 01:05:24,040
sure what the answer to that is, and,

1808
01:05:24,190 --> 01:05:26,010
but because it is going to.

1809
01:05:26,130 --> 01:05:27,150
Because ultimate people just

1810
01:05:27,180 --> 01:05:28,120
want to do things that are cheap,

1811
01:05:28,200 --> 01:05:29,160
and artists are not cheap,

1812
01:05:29,200 --> 01:05:31,790
and so they'll choose AI to do their covers,

1813
01:05:31,820 --> 01:05:32,650
other comic books,

1814
01:05:32,700 --> 01:05:33,350
or do their

1815
01:05:33,380 --> 01:05:36,040
visual effects in a movie, and they'll,

1816
01:05:36,200 --> 01:05:37,160
nine times out of ten,

1817
01:05:37,200 --> 01:05:38,860
they'll eventually choose a cheaper option.

1818
01:05:38,910 --> 01:05:40,060
And so I don't know.

1819
01:05:40,210 --> 01:05:40,580
Yeah.

1820
01:05:40,630 --> 01:05:42,880
How artists will survive.

1821
01:05:42,920 --> 01:05:44,370
I saw toys r us recently,

1822
01:05:44,460 --> 01:05:46,900
did an ad that was all AI generated,

1823
01:05:47,070 --> 01:05:51,130
and it was really good.

1824
01:05:51,300 --> 01:05:52,800
It was really good.

1825
01:05:52,920 --> 01:05:54,920
And I work in video production,

1826
01:05:55,000 --> 01:05:57,160
so I was just like, ah, crap.

1827
01:05:57,580 --> 01:05:59,240
And we're, you know, we're. Right

1828
01:05:59,270 --> 01:06:01,380
now we're in a place where we can sort of like,

1829
01:06:01,500 --> 01:06:03,690
eyeball the uncanny valley, but pretty soon,

1830
01:06:03,720 --> 01:06:04,590
we're not gonna be able to,

1831
01:06:04,640 --> 01:06:06,180
we're not gonna be able to notice that it was.

1832
01:06:06,220 --> 01:06:06,990
Gonna be so good.

1833
01:06:07,040 --> 01:06:08,640
And then. Yeah, and then.

1834
01:06:08,670 --> 01:06:11,120
And then what? You know, so. So, yeah.

1835
01:06:11,170 --> 01:06:12,480
Rock in a hard place for sure.

1836
01:06:12,570 --> 01:06:14,590
But, yeah, I'm just waiting for when they,

1837
01:06:14,640 --> 01:06:16,850
when I'm able to just say to the AI,

1838
01:06:16,920 --> 01:06:20,160
I want to watch this type of Star Trek story.

1839
01:06:20,210 --> 01:06:21,420
And it makes one for me.

1840
01:06:21,460 --> 01:06:21,770
Yeah.

1841
01:06:21,840 --> 01:06:24,920
Because it'll be completely customized.

1842
01:06:26,210 --> 01:06:28,490
Input and output.

1843
01:06:28,570 --> 01:06:29,800
Well, you know, they, you know, you know,

1844
01:06:29,830 --> 01:06:31,070
the whole Hollywood thing of, like,

1845
01:06:31,120 --> 01:06:33,380
them using, you know, like Carrie

1846
01:06:33,390 --> 01:06:36,420
Fisher's face during World War one, you know,

1847
01:06:36,430 --> 01:06:38,380
where they put her face on and so where they

1848
01:06:38,390 --> 01:06:40,790
were able to just take actors that are alive

1849
01:06:40,840 --> 01:06:43,590
or past and then put it all into AI and

1850
01:06:43,600 --> 01:06:45,720
then make a whole movie out of it that no one

1851
01:06:45,750 --> 01:06:47,770
was actually filmed in, you know, and that's.

1852
01:06:47,850 --> 01:06:49,300
That is right around the corner.

1853
01:06:49,350 --> 01:06:50,590
Yeah, that is a problem.

1854
01:06:50,660 --> 01:06:51,410
I have a friend who's

1855
01:06:51,450 --> 01:06:53,290
making a movie right now doing that,

1856
01:06:53,330 --> 01:06:55,620
hoping to be the guy who makes, like,

1857
01:06:55,650 --> 01:06:57,920
the first movie that way that nobody can tell.

1858
01:06:57,970 --> 01:07:01,190
So now that being said, if the.

1859
01:07:01,270 --> 01:07:03,220
If the Bruce Lee estate was up

1860
01:07:03,250 --> 01:07:05,750
for it and they made a movie that

1861
01:07:05,790 --> 01:07:08,410
was really great and looked really good,

1862
01:07:08,580 --> 01:07:14,240
it'd be hard to say. Yeah. So. So, yeah,

1863
01:07:14,330 --> 01:07:15,170
I don't know.

1864
01:07:15,320 --> 01:07:16,700
It's tough, but I mean,

1865
01:07:16,730 --> 01:07:17,540
it is the kind of thing.

1866
01:07:17,570 --> 01:07:19,440
We could spend another, like 2 hours.

1867
01:07:19,570 --> 01:07:22,330
That's a whole podcast episode on its.

1868
01:07:22,860 --> 01:07:23,690
Yeah.

1869
01:07:23,880 --> 01:07:25,970
Well, thank you. You know, this is,

1870
01:07:26,040 --> 01:07:26,970
this has been wonderful,

1871
01:07:27,040 --> 01:07:28,160
and I appreciate, you know,

1872
01:07:28,190 --> 01:07:30,380
I'm so grateful that we were able to meet you.

1873
01:07:30,460 --> 01:07:32,630
I wear the jacket every Wednesday

1874
01:07:32,680 --> 01:07:34,080
because I play Star Trek adventures,

1875
01:07:34,150 --> 01:07:35,720
so I kind of wear it to, like,

1876
01:07:35,830 --> 01:07:38,300
get into the game and I take it to work,

1877
01:07:38,340 --> 01:07:40,740
and I'll wear, like, a gray, a black,

1878
01:07:40,820 --> 01:07:42,850
gray shirt and some black

1879
01:07:42,920 --> 01:07:44,880
slacks and black boots that I have,

1880
01:07:44,910 --> 01:07:46,090
and I'm just like, okay. Like,

1881
01:07:46,120 --> 01:07:47,730
I walk into work and they're like,

1882
01:07:47,900 --> 01:07:49,400
Frank has his enterprise

1883
01:07:49,450 --> 01:07:52,130
jacket on again. I'm like, heck, yeah.

1884
01:07:52,180 --> 01:07:53,730
It's my power suit.

1885
01:07:54,790 --> 01:07:56,920
I love it. That's awesome. That's awesome.

1886
01:07:56,970 --> 01:07:57,730
Thank you.

1887
01:07:58,070 --> 01:08:00,330
What you're doing is so awesome.

1888
01:08:01,350 --> 01:08:02,360
And it's an inspiration

1889
01:08:02,410 --> 01:08:04,650
for a lot of other nerdpreneurs. Even just,

1890
01:08:04,700 --> 01:08:06,530
that's part of our mission is to share these

1891
01:08:06,580 --> 01:08:08,970
types of stories so that people out there

1892
01:08:09,470 --> 01:08:12,060
who are aspiring to be successful in

1893
01:08:12,090 --> 01:08:15,460
their nerdy passion can learn the

1894
01:08:15,490 --> 01:08:16,970
things that other people have done to make

1895
01:08:16,979 --> 01:08:18,910
it happen and also be inspired to do it.

1896
01:08:18,939 --> 01:08:21,149
So I wanted to just ask

1897
01:08:21,180 --> 01:08:25,420
you a final question around that is, you know,

1898
01:08:25,450 --> 01:08:27,420
what does it mean to you now to be doing

1899
01:08:27,490 --> 01:08:31,260
something that you really love and have

1900
01:08:31,310 --> 01:08:33,920
created out of this passion and is serving

1901
01:08:34,000 --> 01:08:36,140
such a vibrant and awesome community?

1902
01:08:37,120 --> 01:08:39,100
Yeah, man, that's a good question.

1903
01:08:40,000 --> 01:08:42,670
You know, I am, I'm super grateful,

1904
01:08:42,810 --> 01:08:44,710
especially when I've talked

1905
01:08:44,729 --> 01:08:48,410
to too many people that are, they feel,

1906
01:08:48,540 --> 01:08:49,649
they feel stuck, you know,

1907
01:08:49,660 --> 01:08:51,970
they feel like that they're not able to,

1908
01:08:52,100 --> 01:08:54,250
they're working too long hours

1909
01:08:54,380 --> 01:08:56,060
trying to please bosses that they

1910
01:08:56,069 --> 01:08:58,260
don't even like and they're doing

1911
01:08:58,330 --> 01:09:00,010
work that they don't even enjoy, you know?

1912
01:09:00,060 --> 01:09:01,380
And so

1913
01:09:03,760 --> 01:09:05,810
I am grateful that I'm able to do

1914
01:09:05,890 --> 01:09:07,970
something like this and especially to

1915
01:09:07,979 --> 01:09:09,700
be able to make it through the pandemic

1916
01:09:09,790 --> 01:09:12,340
and make it through all this crazy,

1917
01:09:13,479 --> 01:09:14,439
constantly changing

1918
01:09:14,479 --> 01:09:17,140
landscape of consumer products,

1919
01:09:17,520 --> 01:09:21,319
to be able to continue to do it. Yeah.

1920
01:09:21,359 --> 01:09:22,939
I will never, ever,

1921
01:09:25,439 --> 01:09:26,180
ever

1922
01:09:27,880 --> 01:09:31,100
badmouth being able to

1923
01:09:32,450 --> 01:09:35,189
wake up and do the work that I do.

1924
01:09:35,260 --> 01:09:36,910
I know that I have good days.

1925
01:09:36,960 --> 01:09:41,510
I have bad days. But, you know,

1926
01:09:41,620 --> 01:09:45,410
to be able to sit in front of my desk to

1927
01:09:45,450 --> 01:09:48,340
create something out of thin air and then offer

1928
01:09:48,390 --> 01:09:51,399
it to a bunch of strangers that I don't know.

1929
01:09:51,510 --> 01:09:52,880
And sometimes I like it.

1930
01:09:52,910 --> 01:09:53,970
Sometimes they love it.

1931
01:09:54,090 --> 01:09:58,910
And to be able to do that and for, again,

1932
01:09:58,960 --> 01:10:00,890
going back to the whole idea of

1933
01:10:01,080 --> 01:10:03,000
when they started contacting me, saying, hey,

1934
01:10:03,050 --> 01:10:03,670
what's next?

1935
01:10:03,720 --> 01:10:05,180
Or can you do this?

1936
01:10:05,220 --> 01:10:06,990
Can you do that? That idea of, like,

1937
01:10:07,080 --> 01:10:08,790
bringing value to them that I would be

1938
01:10:08,800 --> 01:10:11,180
missed if I wasn't here and all that, like,

1939
01:10:11,220 --> 01:10:13,360
I just feel like I can't be more

1940
01:10:13,390 --> 01:10:16,000
grateful enough to be able to do. To do that.

1941
01:10:17,100 --> 01:10:18,370
Who knows how long it'll last?

1942
01:10:18,440 --> 01:10:20,400
And regardless if it's here

1943
01:10:20,430 --> 01:10:22,030
within or if it's something else, whatever,

1944
01:10:22,080 --> 01:10:22,670
I hope that will

1945
01:10:22,680 --> 01:10:24,660
always be in that, you know, position.

1946
01:10:25,080 --> 01:10:27,090
And I love the fact

1947
01:10:27,140 --> 01:10:29,860
of being able to be my own boss.

1948
01:10:29,990 --> 01:10:31,800
But when I say that I, like,

1949
01:10:31,840 --> 01:10:33,830
have a thousand bosses because of you're

1950
01:10:33,860 --> 01:10:35,740
working for the customers you're working for,

1951
01:10:35,870 --> 01:10:36,940
you're working for Paramount,

1952
01:10:36,990 --> 01:10:38,740
you're working for Comic Con, like you,

1953
01:10:38,770 --> 01:10:40,880
you kind of have a thousand bosses.

1954
01:10:41,040 --> 01:10:43,140
But I think one thing that I learned

1955
01:10:43,170 --> 01:10:45,400
out of the pandemic is that there's no

1956
01:10:45,440 --> 01:10:47,440
job that's worth your life and your soul.

1957
01:10:47,520 --> 01:10:48,750
And it just comes down to it.

1958
01:10:48,780 --> 01:10:49,710
There's nothing like that.

1959
01:10:49,820 --> 01:10:51,070
Nothing more important than your family.

1960
01:10:51,140 --> 01:10:51,980
There's nothing more important

1961
01:10:52,030 --> 01:10:53,410
than the lives of your kids.

1962
01:10:53,540 --> 01:10:54,630
And there's nothing more

1963
01:10:54,660 --> 01:10:55,860
important than your own mental health.

1964
01:10:55,910 --> 01:10:58,380
And so before the pandemic,

1965
01:10:58,450 --> 01:11:00,040
I was driving hardcore.

1966
01:11:00,080 --> 01:11:01,180
I was telling people,

1967
01:11:01,920 --> 01:11:04,100
working 25 hours a day,

1968
01:11:04,170 --> 01:11:05,830
burning candles on all three ends,

1969
01:11:05,900 --> 01:11:07,650
and that was just what I was doing to

1970
01:11:07,660 --> 01:11:09,920
get this company off the ground and going.

1971
01:11:10,040 --> 01:11:11,890
And then post pandemic, I realized,

1972
01:11:11,940 --> 01:11:12,550
you know what?

1973
01:11:12,660 --> 01:11:15,180
It's not worth my soul. And so,

1974
01:11:16,300 --> 01:11:17,900
so while I work

1975
01:11:17,940 --> 01:11:19,870
very hard and I'm very committed,

1976
01:11:20,000 --> 01:11:21,840
I make sure that I spend time with

1977
01:11:21,870 --> 01:11:24,470
my family and my friends and my dog. I go

1978
01:11:24,480 --> 01:11:28,170
on long walks and could I be making, you know,

1979
01:11:28,200 --> 01:11:30,320
a few more dollars here or there? Sure, I can.

1980
01:11:30,390 --> 01:11:33,020
But I'm grateful that I have this job,

1981
01:11:33,060 --> 01:11:34,220
that I can do what I love,

1982
01:11:34,340 --> 01:11:35,250
but I'm more importantly,

1983
01:11:35,280 --> 01:11:36,920
I'm just grateful that I have, like,

1984
01:11:38,020 --> 01:11:41,240
a relative realistic level of

1985
01:11:41,270 --> 01:11:44,550
balance in my life where I can be happy.

1986
01:11:44,600 --> 01:11:46,390
And it's funny because

1987
01:11:46,440 --> 01:11:51,200
I was listening to a Conan O'Brien was, had a,

1988
01:11:51,210 --> 01:11:52,300
bought a podcast,

1989
01:11:52,460 --> 01:11:53,490
and he was saying,

1990
01:11:53,560 --> 01:11:55,680
how would you rather be

1991
01:11:57,460 --> 01:12:00,090
funny or rather be happy? And see,

1992
01:12:00,120 --> 01:12:02,680
he said during his early part of his life,

1993
01:12:02,850 --> 01:12:05,470
he would have done anything to be happy,

1994
01:12:05,640 --> 01:12:07,290
even at the expense, I'm sorry, anything

1995
01:12:07,320 --> 01:12:10,980
to be funny at the expense of being happy.

1996
01:12:11,720 --> 01:12:12,570
Whatever it took,

1997
01:12:12,620 --> 01:12:15,020
he would just focus on being funny.

1998
01:12:15,190 --> 01:12:17,130
And then now, later in life, it's like,

1999
01:12:17,140 --> 01:12:18,230
it's not important to be funny.

2000
01:12:18,260 --> 01:12:20,910
It's more important to be happy. And, you know,

2001
01:12:21,020 --> 01:12:22,320
I'm not a young guy anymore.

2002
01:12:22,360 --> 01:12:22,940
I still hopefully

2003
01:12:22,970 --> 01:12:24,340
have a long career ahead of me.

2004
01:12:24,430 --> 01:12:26,060
But I just realized that

2005
01:12:27,840 --> 01:12:29,950
I'm not in this to be funny. Like,

2006
01:12:29,980 --> 01:12:31,380
I really am in this to be

2007
01:12:31,410 --> 01:12:34,150
happy and be happy with my family, so.

2008
01:12:34,450 --> 01:12:36,480
Well, Tony, thank you so much for coming on.

2009
01:12:36,510 --> 01:12:38,750
If people want to check out hero within,

2010
01:12:38,920 --> 01:12:42,570
get some amazing merch that is, you know,

2011
01:12:42,650 --> 01:12:44,470
from one of these cool franchises

2012
01:12:44,500 --> 01:12:46,420
you landed leasing deals with. Like,

2013
01:12:46,550 --> 01:12:48,810
how can they find you, support you,

2014
01:12:48,890 --> 01:12:51,030
and get some really amazing stuff?

2015
01:12:51,810 --> 01:12:54,700
You can go on herewithinstore.com

2016
01:12:54,790 --> 01:12:57,390
or on all of our socials. We're hero within,

2017
01:12:58,250 --> 01:12:59,360
whether it's on. We're

2018
01:12:59,390 --> 01:13:03,030
mainly on Instagram and on Twitter, Facebook.

2019
01:13:03,190 --> 01:13:06,290
And then coming up is San Diego Comic Con.

2020
01:13:06,340 --> 01:13:08,490
We're at booth 1943,

2021
01:13:08,600 --> 01:13:09,250
which is kind of in

2022
01:13:09,260 --> 01:13:11,130
the center of the convention center.

2023
01:13:11,950 --> 01:13:13,810
We'll also be at the energized lounge,

2024
01:13:13,840 --> 01:13:15,560
which is across the street in the gas lamp.

2025
01:13:15,690 --> 01:13:17,110
All this is on our website.

2026
01:13:17,270 --> 01:13:18,540
And then from here,

2027
01:13:18,610 --> 01:13:22,290
we really kick off a busy season of cons.

2028
01:13:22,400 --> 01:13:23,490
After Comic Con,

2029
01:13:23,540 --> 01:13:27,030
we go to Star Trek Las Vegas a week later. So

2030
01:13:27,070 --> 01:13:31,000
we'll be in deep on ground zero of Star Trek.

2031
01:13:31,160 --> 01:13:34,020
And then we actually have another,

2032
01:13:34,170 --> 01:13:35,290
that show has launched

2033
01:13:35,300 --> 01:13:36,670
a bunch of smaller regional shows.

2034
01:13:36,700 --> 01:13:38,140
And so we'll be in

2035
01:13:38,480 --> 01:13:43,090
Nashville and Chicago in September. We'll

2036
01:13:43,100 --> 01:13:47,620
be at New York Comic Con in October, Star Trek,

2037
01:13:47,670 --> 01:13:49,900
Dallas in November,

2038
01:13:50,320 --> 01:13:54,490
and then maybe another show in December.

2039
01:13:54,530 --> 01:13:56,440
I'm not sure. So, yeah.

2040
01:13:56,470 --> 01:13:58,210
So this July on,

2041
01:13:58,290 --> 01:14:00,580
we'll be on the road quite a bit. And

2042
01:14:00,630 --> 01:14:03,010
you can catch us at one of those shows again.

2043
01:14:03,050 --> 01:14:04,470
It's all listed on our website,

2044
01:14:05,530 --> 01:14:07,780
but you can find us online or on social media.

2045
01:14:07,950 --> 01:14:11,050
Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you, everybody,

2046
01:14:11,090 --> 01:14:13,140
for listening to today's

2047
01:14:13,190 --> 01:14:16,750
episode with Tony and hero within.

2048
01:14:17,050 --> 01:14:18,830
And as always, everybody,

2049
01:14:19,500 --> 01:14:20,800
keep it nerdy.

2050
01:14:22,020 --> 01:14:24,380
Live long to prosper. Nice.