Running On All Cylinders is Not for the Faint of Heart

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[00:00] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Countless Podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_00: Hello, I'm Mario Tonigusi with Winnipeg's podcast on Canada's podcast network.
[00:11] SPEAKER_00: Joining me today is Jay Hall, who is a serial entrepreneur based out of Winnipeg.
[00:17] SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us today, Jay.
[00:19] SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
[00:20] SPEAKER_01: Appreciate it.
[00:21] SPEAKER_00: Okay, you described yourself as a serial entrepreneur.
[00:23] SPEAKER_00: Tell me a little bit about some of the ventures that you're involved in.
[00:29] SPEAKER_01: Well, I've been an entrepreneur since I was 15 years old.
[00:33] SPEAKER_01: So I've built and sold a few companies in my time, mostly in entertainment space.
[00:39] SPEAKER_01: Currently, I have Ticketote, which is a vent management and ticketing website, which
[00:45] SPEAKER_01: Canada's podcast helped us get a golden ticket to Dragons Den for.
[00:49] SPEAKER_01: I also run an IT and marketing agency called Sync Digital Solutions.
[00:53] SPEAKER_01: And I have a Halloween event, which is actually currently in the process of being sold
[00:59] SPEAKER_01: that is one of Canada's largest Halloween events.
[01:01] SPEAKER_01: Very scary, very scary.
[01:04] SPEAKER_00: How long have you been doing that?
[01:08] SPEAKER_01: So this was technically the fifth year.
[01:11] SPEAKER_01: We did fear five in 2021, but we weren't able to do 2019 or 2020.
[01:16] SPEAKER_01: Our venue burnt down in 2019 in the summer and then in 2020 COVID, so we couldn't do it.
[01:21] SPEAKER_01: All right.
[01:21] SPEAKER_00: Tell me a little bit about the entrepreneurship journey that you've been on.
[01:29] SPEAKER_00: But I found really interesting is on your website, I have to read this correctly.
[01:34] SPEAKER_00: You have a quote, life is too short to set still.
[01:38] SPEAKER_00: That basically describe you.
[01:40] SPEAKER_01: It does.
[01:41] SPEAKER_01: And you know where I got that from.
[01:42] SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you ever heard of Hunky Bell in the Hunky Bell Progamy maker.
[01:46] SPEAKER_01: Yes.
[01:46] SPEAKER_01: So he's my great.
[01:48] SPEAKER_01: He was my great uncle.
[01:49] SPEAKER_01: He passed away a couple of years ago.
[01:53] SPEAKER_01: And he always had a similar quote.
[01:55] SPEAKER_01: Much more grim though is that if I stand still, the grim Reaper is going to get me.
[02:00] SPEAKER_01: So he refused to stand still.
[02:03] SPEAKER_01: He was an entrepreneur his whole life.
[02:05] SPEAKER_01: And I kind of took that up from him.
[02:07] SPEAKER_01: I heard that as a kid growing up, right?
[02:09] SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I never stand still for very long at all.
[02:13] SPEAKER_00: Tell me, you know, go back in time.
[02:16] SPEAKER_00: You know, what was your very first adventure as a 15 year old?
[02:21] SPEAKER_01: I was a, it actually stems from grade six.
[02:26] SPEAKER_01: A girl asked me to dance at a class dance, scared the living day lights out of me,
[02:32] SPEAKER_01: stepped on her feet, sweating profusely the whole time.
[02:37] SPEAKER_01: And I wanted nothing to do with that ever again.
[02:39] SPEAKER_01: So I became a DJ and so I could be controlling music.
[02:43] SPEAKER_01: I didn't have the dance with anybody.
[02:44] SPEAKER_01: And DJ led into promotions and marketing.
[02:48] SPEAKER_01: And that was my first real business throwing events.
[02:51] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[02:52] SPEAKER_00: And so your career has been a lot around that entertainment field, right?
[02:57] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[02:58] SPEAKER_01: Entertainment marketing are the two very common themes in my entrepreneurial journey, for sure.
[03:03] SPEAKER_00: Why why that that area, I guess.
[03:07] SPEAKER_01: You know, because I won, I didn't keep a normal sleeping schedule.
[03:13] SPEAKER_01: So being up all night, kind of being like a bat was, was my natural state.
[03:19] SPEAKER_01: So entertainment and DJing and promotions landed itself to that.
[03:22] SPEAKER_01: Marketing kind of came out of that.
[03:24] SPEAKER_01: I was doing marketing for night clubs and events that I was a part of.
[03:28] SPEAKER_01: And my VIPs that would come in own businesses and they would say, Hey, how did you do this?
[03:32] SPEAKER_01: Can you do this for us?
[03:34] SPEAKER_01: And that's kind of how I became and got really heavily into marketing.
[03:37] SPEAKER_00: All right.
[03:37] SPEAKER_00: Tell us a little bit about the the dragons den experience.
[03:43] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's been full of peaks and valleys.
[03:47] SPEAKER_01: We'll say, so we got the golden ticket.
[03:51] SPEAKER_01: I had actually auditioned before and I kept getting told that do you need the
[03:58] SPEAKER_01: dragons den, which I was like, no, I really do.
[04:00] SPEAKER_01: But I something about it.
[04:01] SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
[04:02] SPEAKER_01: So we got the golden ticket.
[04:03] SPEAKER_01: I got back on with a producer on Monday.
[04:06] SPEAKER_01: And we had a discussion around, you know, changes and a lot had changed in the
[04:11] SPEAKER_01: couple months.
[04:12] SPEAKER_01: And so I actually talked to them on St. Patrick's Day.
[04:14] SPEAKER_01: I was in Las Vegas.
[04:16] SPEAKER_01: I was at a St. Patrick's Day party and I'm trying to talk to dragons den and all
[04:20] SPEAKER_01: of my friends around me are trying to distract me.
[04:22] SPEAKER_01: It was it was a wild day.
[04:24] SPEAKER_01: So I got to do the I got the pitch.
[04:26] SPEAKER_01: I got the pitches part of the golden ticket and I'm just waiting to hear back.
[04:30] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[04:30] SPEAKER_00: So can you maybe describe just a little bit about the company?
[04:35] SPEAKER_01: Ticket to yeah, or yeah.
[04:38] SPEAKER_01: So ticket to it's a company that was actually has a pretty interesting back
[04:43] SPEAKER_01: story.
[04:44] SPEAKER_01: So in 2006, there was this guy named Steve Shafer.
[04:47] SPEAKER_01: He started a Manitoba wedding socials company.
[04:50] SPEAKER_01: A lot of people won't know what that is.
[04:52] SPEAKER_01: A wedding socials basically were two people started to get married.
[04:55] SPEAKER_01: And either themselves or friends throw a party to pay for the wedding.
[04:57] SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
[04:58] SPEAKER_01: It's like crowdfunding for weddings.
[04:59] SPEAKER_01: I was a few years ago in Winnipeg.
[05:02] SPEAKER_01: There you go.
[05:03] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[05:03] SPEAKER_01: So it's a very uniquely manitoba concept.
[05:06] SPEAKER_01: And so he started this website.
[05:08] SPEAKER_01: He wanted to get into more general events, but he didn't have a development
[05:10] SPEAKER_01: background or an events background.
[05:12] SPEAKER_01: So I came on and I helped him on the development side a bit.
[05:15] SPEAKER_01: And I was one of the sites first customers fast forward to 2016.
[05:19] SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, Steve became a terminally ill and he ended up selling
[05:24] SPEAKER_01: deal bow to me to make sure to handle any debt that was left over.
[05:28] SPEAKER_01: And around that time I broke my back and ended up paralyzed.
[05:34] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, really bad injury in the gym.
[05:37] SPEAKER_01: Both vertebrae discs, all my ribs on the right side smashed.
[05:41] SPEAKER_01: My spine was dislocated by 12 degrees.
[05:45] SPEAKER_01: My static nerve had been almost torn completely in half.
[05:48] SPEAKER_01: So it was two and a half years of recovery.
[05:51] SPEAKER_01: And originally why I bought the oboe was for my for my projects, for my events.
[05:56] SPEAKER_01: But as I had to recover, I fell off of the event wagon a little bit and
[06:00] SPEAKER_01: didn't throw a lot of events obviously because of such pain.
[06:04] SPEAKER_01: And then, then, you know, then our venue burns down for fear, the only event that
[06:08] SPEAKER_01: I'm doing.
[06:09] SPEAKER_01: And then COVID hits.
[06:10] SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, oh boy, what am I going to do with myself?
[06:13] SPEAKER_01: So that's when I decided early 2021 that my, I was going to put all my focus.
[06:19] SPEAKER_01: You know, there's, there's, there's usually for an entrepreneur, there's an epiphany
[06:23] SPEAKER_01: moment.
[06:24] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[06:24] SPEAKER_01: You go, I am, I might be my, my, my greatest problem.
[06:30] SPEAKER_01: And that I'm not looking at myself rationally and thinking, where are my strengths?
[06:35] SPEAKER_01: Let's go that direction.
[06:36] SPEAKER_01: A lot of times I found when I was younger, I was guided by things that I like
[06:40] SPEAKER_01: passion and it, but I wasn't guided by what I was strong in.
[06:43] SPEAKER_01: So then when I sat down, I said, okay, I'm strong in events, I'm strong in marketing.
[06:48] SPEAKER_01: And I'm strong in development.
[06:50] SPEAKER_01: I can run a development team.
[06:52] SPEAKER_01: So that's when we decided in early 2021 to really just make ticket to our main priority.
[06:58] SPEAKER_01: And, and we have since 10 X, our income from 2020 to 2021 to 2022 so far, our year
[07:05] SPEAKER_01: to date is projected to actually 25 X or 2021.
[07:09] SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, so, you know, with that experience that you had with that, your injury, like, what
[07:17] SPEAKER_00: did you learn from all that?
[07:21] SPEAKER_01: Perseverance above anything else.
[07:23] SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was paralyzed completely for three weeks.
[07:27] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, you need something to hold on to, something to go after, right?
[07:33] SPEAKER_01: Because I was being told by multiple doctors, does a good chance.
[07:36] SPEAKER_01: You may wheelchair for us, your life.
[07:39] SPEAKER_01: You know, if it's not now, this injury is going to continue.
[07:42] SPEAKER_01: Invasive back surgeries are going to be terrible.
[07:45] SPEAKER_01: I come from a research background because of all the work that I've done in marketing.
[07:50] SPEAKER_01: And you have to have a good research background to keep on top of all these crazy changes that
[07:54] SPEAKER_01: happen in digital.
[07:55] SPEAKER_01: And so I started researching and a nurse actually helped me in the hospital research stem cells.
[08:00] SPEAKER_01: And stem cell surgery is what got me back up on my feet.
[08:03] SPEAKER_01: And I am now 100%.
[08:04] SPEAKER_01: I'm probably in better shape now than I've ever been.
[08:07] SPEAKER_01: And so I really learned in that to take my time, really figure things out.
[08:14] SPEAKER_01: And don't quit.
[08:17] SPEAKER_01: Like there's always this voice, especially for entrepreneurs, because everybody's
[08:20] SPEAKER_01: telling you around that you're around you that you're absolutely nuts.
[08:23] SPEAKER_01: And that you should quit and you should go get a regular job.
[08:26] SPEAKER_01: So that's what everybody's telling me.
[08:28] SPEAKER_01: And I just, I had to push through that, right?
[08:31] SPEAKER_01: So how old are you, by the way?
[08:33] SPEAKER_01: I try not to tell people on 25 for life.
[08:36] SPEAKER_01: 25 for life.
[08:38] SPEAKER_01: It's why I said that.
[08:40] SPEAKER_00: Because it's that you're obviously at a younger age learned a lot of lessened the life,
[08:48] SPEAKER_00: like in wisdom, you know, through obviously your experience, right?
[08:55] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know what?
[08:56] SPEAKER_01: I would say in the last, since the injury, which was in 2016, that 2016 to now,
[09:03] SPEAKER_01: and I hope into the future, have been my largest growth periods, especially as an entrepreneur.
[09:08] SPEAKER_01: You know, when you're younger and you're 15, 16 and walking to boardrooms,
[09:12] SPEAKER_01: you're pretty much the court jester walking into the kingdom, right?
[09:16] SPEAKER_01: And nobody's really taking you seriously.
[09:18] SPEAKER_01: And then as you get older, you realize they shouldn't have taken me seriously,
[09:23] SPEAKER_01: because I didn't know what the heck I was doing.
[09:25] SPEAKER_01: I was flying by the sea of my pants the entire time.
[09:27] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[09:27] SPEAKER_01: So I've definitely learned two valuable lessons, especially through COVID and through my injury,
[09:33] SPEAKER_01: where to be a better person and as a result of being a better person, I'm a better entrepreneur.
[09:40] SPEAKER_00: So I just wanted to ask Jay, so how did you get that injury?
[09:45] SPEAKER_00: Like what happened?
[09:46] SPEAKER_01: I was doing, I was just had a modest weight, 125 pounds on the squat bar.
[09:52] SPEAKER_01: And it was this new kind of machine.
[09:54] SPEAKER_01: And I was using it now is in an up squat position and a cable snapped and 420 pounds falling back.
[10:00] SPEAKER_00: Oh, man.
[10:00] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my body was pushing up.
[10:03] SPEAKER_01: So instinctively when the weight hit, I pushed up and I actually didn't know for eight hours.
[10:08] SPEAKER_01: I was injured.
[10:08] SPEAKER_01: I left the gym.
[10:09] SPEAKER_01: I went and got food.
[10:10] SPEAKER_01: I sat down.
[10:11] SPEAKER_01: I started to get a fever.
[10:12] SPEAKER_01: I went to lay down a bed.
[10:13] SPEAKER_01: I woke up and couldn't lose.
[10:14] SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
[10:15] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[10:16] SPEAKER_00: What do you like about being an entrepreneur and when it beg specifically?
[10:23] SPEAKER_01: Being an entrepreneur and when it beg, you know, it's the best thing about being an entrepreneur,
[10:27] SPEAKER_01: I think in general is when you get to the point where you have some freedom.
[10:31] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[10:31] SPEAKER_01: Like I'm very busy.
[10:32] SPEAKER_01: All that, you know, anybody who asks to say, I'm probably one of the busiest people that they know.
[10:36] SPEAKER_01: However, if you need me, I can be there.
[10:39] SPEAKER_01: If there's something, you know, great happening that is last minute, I can probably show up.
[10:44] SPEAKER_01: I can probably make it happen.
[10:45] SPEAKER_01: If somebody's got to pay jets tickets, you know, two hours before the game, I can make the game.
[10:50] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[10:51] SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't, I'm not tied to a specific schedule.
[10:53] SPEAKER_01: And I think that that above all else is what I love of being an entrepreneur.
[10:59] SPEAKER_00: So I'm curious, you know, obviously from starting at a young age, have you ever worked like for somebody?
[11:07] SPEAKER_00: Like something your boss?
[11:10] Speaker UNKNOWN: Exactly.
[11:11] SPEAKER_00: Once a subway.
[11:13] SPEAKER_00: Was that?
[11:14] SPEAKER_00: Probably didn't like it, right?
[11:16] SPEAKER_01: No, no, once it was in that subway when I was young, I was trying to get a better car.
[11:21] SPEAKER_01: It didn't go well.
[11:23] SPEAKER_01: You know, somebody telling you where to be, what to do and all that.
[11:27] SPEAKER_01: I just didn't go well.
[11:29] SPEAKER_01: My second time was actually when I was, I was letting those naysayers get to me,
[11:34] SPEAKER_01: letting them, you know, get in my head and I said, you know what?
[11:37] SPEAKER_01: I probably can't do this.
[11:38] SPEAKER_01: So I went and got a job on a board of directors for one of the largest hotel chains in Canada,
[11:44] SPEAKER_01: a base here at Winnipeg.
[11:45] SPEAKER_01: And I spent 18 months and I actually came home one day and all my friends are in my living room.
[11:52] SPEAKER_01: And I'm looking, I'm like, what are you guys all doing here?
[11:54] SPEAKER_01: And I said, we need to talk.
[11:56] SPEAKER_01: I don't drink.
[11:58] SPEAKER_01: I don't do drugs.
[11:59] SPEAKER_01: What, what, what, what could this intervention possibly be?
[12:02] SPEAKER_01: And it was because I had become so miserable in a regular job that they needed to pull me back and say,
[12:08] SPEAKER_01: we were wrong.
[12:09] SPEAKER_01: We're sorry about what we said to you.
[12:11] SPEAKER_01: You need to get back to being an entrepreneur.
[12:14] SPEAKER_00: But yeah, well, you know, it's fun.
[12:16] SPEAKER_00: You mentioned that, right?
[12:17] SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, I'll just give you a quick story of myself.
[12:21] SPEAKER_00: I was at the Calgary Herald for 35 years as a, as a reporter, editor and columnist, all that type of stuff,
[12:29] SPEAKER_00: and was laid off six, six and a half, six plus years ago now.
[12:35] SPEAKER_00: But I didn't realize how miserable I was, right?
[12:38] SPEAKER_00: And, and being laid off forced to become an entrepreneur yourself and do your own thing
[12:45] SPEAKER_00: and totally change, change in the flip in the, in the mindset, right?
[12:51] SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the appeal, isn't it, for a lot of entrepreneurs to be independent, to be on your own,
[12:58] SPEAKER_00: to be in, in charge of your own destiny, I guess.
[13:03] SPEAKER_01: I would say so, you know, it's interesting.
[13:06] SPEAKER_01: I heard it and I always thought it was a cliche, but, you know, like Mark Cuban said it,
[13:10] SPEAKER_01: you know, every, I'm pretty sure every successful entrepreneur said it.
[13:14] SPEAKER_01: They said the tune of motivations for entrepreneurship should be freedom
[13:19] SPEAKER_01: and the ability to drive your own destiny.
[13:22] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[13:23] SPEAKER_01: The two motivations that should not be why you become an entrepreneur is money and women.
[13:32] SPEAKER_01: Hence why I'm not in nightclubs anymore.
[13:37] SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
[13:38] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you mentioned Cuban, but when you, and you mentioned your uncle,
[13:45] SPEAKER_00: when you look through your entrepreneurial journey, where did you learn the most about being an entrepreneur
[13:51] SPEAKER_00: through anybody in particular, through any books?
[13:58] SPEAKER_01: Boy, I digest a lot of information.
[14:01] SPEAKER_01: So definitely growing up, I was very interested in how my uncle's life went,
[14:07] SPEAKER_01: because he always just seemed to be so happy and free.
[14:11] SPEAKER_01: Even though he was a very hard line old-school Ukrainian dude,
[14:15] SPEAKER_01: he was, he was just, he just had this, he had something that nobody else around him had.
[14:20] SPEAKER_01: And I couldn't quite quantify it as a kid, but I knew I wanted it.
[14:24] SPEAKER_01: And then I would say growing up, honestly,
[14:28] SPEAKER_01: dragons done in Shark Tank, huge impact on my life.
[14:31] SPEAKER_01: You learn so much if you just stop and listen.
[14:34] SPEAKER_01: And it's funny after I, after I got the golden ticket, I actually went back and watched everything.
[14:39] SPEAKER_01: I decided to take a week and not do anything else.
[14:42] SPEAKER_01: Just watch dragons done, Shark Tank, Shark Tank Australia, Dragon's Den UK.
[14:46] SPEAKER_01: I watched every episode.
[14:47] SPEAKER_01: My notes, I hit the, the character limit on notes on Apple notes,
[14:52] SPEAKER_01: just taking notes about all the pitches.
[14:53] SPEAKER_01: And then I, and then I put together a little algorithm myself to find the commonalities and the pitches that they liked it didn't like.
[14:59] SPEAKER_01: And, and, and I was really able to flush.
[15:03] SPEAKER_01: I think my pitch on my business is better than it's ever been.
[15:07] SPEAKER_01: Blinkist is another great resource for me.
[15:09] SPEAKER_01: It's a, it's a, they sum up books in audio form because entrepreneurs,
[15:15] SPEAKER_01: you know, it's funny, actually, I talked about Mark Cuban.
[15:17] SPEAKER_01: Mark Cuban said, he always, he had this challenge to his kids is growing up to read as many books as they could.
[15:23] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but he, but then they started telling him stuff.
[15:26] SPEAKER_01: He's like, where did you learn that?
[15:27] SPEAKER_01: And I said, I learned it on YouTube.
[15:29] SPEAKER_01: And he said, oh, the, the, the information is being digested differently now.
[15:34] SPEAKER_01: So while I do try to read at least a few business books a year, every morning, I do, I, I have one business book and one kind of like mindset book that I do on Blinkist takes a book that might take me a week or two to read,
[15:48] SPEAKER_01: compact it down into 25, 30 minutes.
[15:51] SPEAKER_01: And I've learned a lot through that.
[15:53] SPEAKER_01: And another way is lost day is.
[15:55] SPEAKER_01: I, I, it's kind of like my second home and the, the, the, the business community there is so supportive and so incredibly inspiring that every time I go there, I come back and I just have fire in me.
[16:11] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, you'll, you'll, you'll be in like lounge 66 at resort world and you'll sit around with all these multi-millionaires and even billionaires.
[16:20] SPEAKER_01: And they want to know what you're doing.
[16:22] SPEAKER_01: They want to help.
[16:23] SPEAKER_01: They want to, you know, drive contacts and everything.
[16:24] SPEAKER_01: That's not something I find everywhere else in the world.
[16:27] SPEAKER_01: So if I'm feeling a little blue, I just head to Vegas and I get my business inspiration.
[16:31] SPEAKER_00: Well, excellent.
[16:33] SPEAKER_00: So I'm curious why you mentioned that, you know, putting everything together and the algorithm.
[16:38] SPEAKER_00: What were some of the common commonalities, the key commonalities that you found?
[16:43] SPEAKER_01: Well, one of the things that that, I mean, we all know, you have to know your numbers.
[16:47] SPEAKER_01: That was that one was key.
[16:49] SPEAKER_01: But where my algorithm actually could not properly compute was between making money and not making money.
[16:58] SPEAKER_01: So pre-profit and into a profitable company.
[17:02] SPEAKER_01: There's no consistency at all.
[17:04] SPEAKER_01: So I learned that that piece of it is based on their gut.
[17:08] SPEAKER_01: Debt definitely drives down any pitch.
[17:12] SPEAKER_01: And if it's over $300,000, under $300,000, it doesn't seem to matter.
[17:19] SPEAKER_01: Owning 100% of your company gets you at least one deal from it, as long as your product makes sense, right?
[17:26] SPEAKER_01: Or your service makes sense.
[17:28] SPEAKER_01: Another couple of things that I thought were really interesting was,
[17:33] SPEAKER_01: so I hate to say it because I don't have a good to tell you Max about Vichenzo.
[17:38] SPEAKER_01: He will do deals that even though he's not an emotional guy, that he feels an emotional attachment to.
[17:46] SPEAKER_01: That's the only deal he does.
[17:47] SPEAKER_01: And then he'll also come in way higher than what you want for percentage wise.
[17:53] SPEAKER_01: And another really interesting thing was,
[17:56] SPEAKER_01: Dragon's Dan, the hardest line dragon is Menjeet.
[18:01] SPEAKER_01: And the softest line dragon out of the algorithm was West.
[18:07] SPEAKER_01: So another couple of things, I guess, to put a point on that.
[18:11] SPEAKER_01: Just in general for pictures is, if you come in and you're able to properly pitch out what
[18:21] SPEAKER_01: your company is, what your differentiators are, and what your numbers are,
[18:25] SPEAKER_01: all cohesive within basically a breath.
[18:28] SPEAKER_01: You're going to get more positive affinity from the dragons than if you're coming and you're
[18:33] SPEAKER_01: trying to break it up into parts.
[18:34] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[18:35] SPEAKER_01: Now that could be cuts that they're doing creatively, but I'm not sure, but that's what the algorithm came
[18:39] SPEAKER_01: with.
[18:40] SPEAKER_00: You know, it's interesting right because today in the today's world, we have so many of these
[18:47] SPEAKER_00: cortical pitches, right?
[18:50] SPEAKER_00: Accompetitions, right?
[18:51] SPEAKER_00: You know, universities have them, banks have them, and stuff.
[18:54] SPEAKER_00: And a lot of them are like 30 seconds.
[18:57] SPEAKER_00: Like tell me what your business is in 30 seconds.
[19:00] SPEAKER_00: I guess if you can't, if you can't put everything together,
[19:06] SPEAKER_00: that's the most important thing in 30 seconds, you know, you're probably toasting stuff like that,
[19:13] SPEAKER_00: you've got to put, you've got to be precise and concise and to the point, right?
[19:20] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what I always feel is the first 30 seconds you should be able to say what your business is,
[19:24] SPEAKER_01: who your audience is, why you're different and why people would pick you, and then in your last
[19:29] SPEAKER_01: 30 seconds you should be able to just spit out your numbers.
[19:33] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[19:33] SPEAKER_01: Right?
[19:34] SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's, and when I did the pitch for you guys, that's what I tried to do with
[19:39] SPEAKER_01: my pitch because I did, I hit, I cut right to that 60 second mark.
[19:45] SPEAKER_00: So tell me, you know, when I looked on your website, Jade, there was a line there about being
[19:51] SPEAKER_00: involved in community activism.
[19:54] SPEAKER_00: What does that mean and how's that shape out for you?
[19:58] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so over the years, I've used my businesses and my projects to try to do some social good.
[20:06] SPEAKER_01: The earliest example I have of that was I had a TV show, nobody should have given me a TV show
[20:12] SPEAKER_01: when I was that young, but I had a TV show called Deaf 11, it was all about the hip-hop scene
[20:16] SPEAKER_01: and win-a-peg.
[20:17] SPEAKER_01: And we did it from our nightclub night at this old, old nightclub called Marty Grah.
[20:22] SPEAKER_01: And what I did there was when the tsunami hit in South Asia, we did this huge 24 hour
[20:32] SPEAKER_01: stayed up for 24 hours benefit at St. Patel Shopping Center.
[20:36] SPEAKER_01: It was streamed on TV, it was in the mall, 24 hours straight, I was up hosting this thing.
[20:42] SPEAKER_01: And we ended up raising quite a lot of money for that.
[20:46] SPEAKER_01: And then, but I didn't, I did a few more of those things, but I didn't really feel like the money
[20:51] SPEAKER_01: was the connection for me. I didn't like raising money, I liked actually getting in there.
[20:56] SPEAKER_01: So the two most recent examples I have of this are there was a lot of controversy around taxi
[21:03] SPEAKER_01: cabs in Manitoba and a lot of incidents happening and the Manitoba government was controlled by
[21:09] SPEAKER_01: something called the taxi cab board and they were, they had a monopoly on transportation here.
[21:14] SPEAKER_01: So I put together a petition and an advocacy for ride sharing in Manitoba.
[21:20] SPEAKER_01: Out of that came the dismantling of the taxi cab board completely and we got ride sharing.
[21:26] SPEAKER_01: The most recent example I have is, was it last summer? No, the summer before. We did a campaign.
[21:34] SPEAKER_01: So Manitoba's nurses were going on to year six without an active contract.
[21:39] SPEAKER_01: No rate of inflation pay increases. They were working, they were being mandated for 16, 24 hour shifts.
[21:46] SPEAKER_01: It was a mess. Our health care is a mess, but nurses needed a lot of help and it felt like you kept
[21:51] SPEAKER_01: getting worked. And then I heard that our current premier, not our current premier now, but our
[21:57] SPEAKER_01: premier at the time had said, nobody cares about this issue. I'm not willing to put political
[22:01] SPEAKER_01: capital into it. So I made him care about the issue. I said, we're a group of people. We went out,
[22:07] SPEAKER_01: we printed up our own signs. We had these giant banners hanging at all throughout the city with our
[22:13] SPEAKER_01: website, mbneursesmatter.ca, did a petition, did all the news, went door to door. We did everything
[22:19] SPEAKER_01: we could to get first an arbitrator for them because we knew if there was an arbitrator, they would
[22:23] SPEAKER_01: get some sort of contract. And then within a couple of months, they had a contract. Okay, why is
[22:28] SPEAKER_00: that important to you? Like, why is it important to be involved in the community? Not only for yourself
[22:34] SPEAKER_01: in general, but for any entrepreneur. I'm not Mark Cuban. I'm not Bill Gates. I don't have a
[22:42] SPEAKER_01: fat bank account like they do. I'd love to have one one day, but we'll see. But I do have a certain
[22:48] SPEAKER_01: amount of success and social latitude. And I feel like it's important that if you get,
[22:57] SPEAKER_01: I think it's really important as human beings to look at our station life and say, how can I help?
[23:04] SPEAKER_01: No matter what situation we're in. You know, like when I was younger and I was DJing, the way I
[23:08] SPEAKER_01: helped was I would play charity parties for free instead of charging them. You know, a little thing,
[23:13] SPEAKER_01: I couldn't do much because I was a kid that was DJing, but that's what I found that I could do.
[23:17] SPEAKER_01: Here I have, you know, I've made media contacts and I have, you know, I have a pretty robust
[23:23] SPEAKER_01: database of people, Matt, Tobah. So I said, nurses matter, nurses have saved my back, right? I
[23:30] SPEAKER_01: told you, a nurse is one that got me in a stencil surgery and it saved me. And on a
[23:34] SPEAKER_01: couple occasions, nurses have really been there for me. So I just look and I say, this is something
[23:39] SPEAKER_01: I care about. I better do something about it. And because I had the ability to do it, I think it's
[23:45] SPEAKER_00: just, it's a responsibility. Excellent. All right. Any last question I have for you? Any other
[23:54] SPEAKER_00: plans out there in terms of thinking up of new ideas and new businesses?
[24:02] SPEAKER_01: We're actually so, so ticket tote is probably going to be developed forever. We have a very aggressive
[24:11] SPEAKER_01: timetable for us right now. We're putting out two new features, a week minimum for the rest of the
[24:17] SPEAKER_01: year and have been doing that since January for ticket tote. Where we are going in the future,
[24:22] SPEAKER_01: I can't really say exactly because it's, you know, it's underlocking key secret, but we are
[24:28] SPEAKER_01: going to become the most social event ticketing platform on the planet by Q2 next year.
[24:35] SPEAKER_00: All right. We look forward to hearing more about that in the future. Thanks a lot, Jay, for
[24:40] SPEAKER_00: joining us today. That was excellent. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. All right.
[24:45] SPEAKER_00: Super. That was Jay Hall, serial entrepreneur, based in Winnipeg. I'm Mario Tonoguzi. This has been
[24:51] SPEAKER_00: Winnipeg's podcast on Canada's podcast network. Thanks for joining us.