Mike Schwarz

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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_00: It's VanCouver's podcast on the Canada's podcast network.
[00:07] SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone, I'm Angela Faye, Hub Builder and Co-host of British Columbia's Podcasts.
[00:14] SPEAKER_00: Part of the Canada's podcast network, your source for great insights from entrepreneurs
[00:18] SPEAKER_00: from across Canada.
[00:20] SPEAKER_00: We talked entrepreneurs who are making it happen here, so you can listen, discover, and engage.
[00:25] SPEAKER_00: Today, I am absolutely privileged to have Mike Schwartz, who is here from BC, a BC entrepreneur
[00:31] SPEAKER_00: from Squamish.
[00:33] SPEAKER_00: He's going to tell us a little bit about his company, but he came from UBC Saunders School
[00:37] SPEAKER_00: of Business with a Bachelor of Commerce.
[00:40] SPEAKER_00: And he's been self-employed working on Internet startups for over 18 years.
[00:44] SPEAKER_00: He has a rich history of successful.com, exits including club vibes, tech vibes, a massive
[00:52] SPEAKER_00: tech conference, which I think is actually the title, the massive tech conference.
[00:57] SPEAKER_00: Discover vanCouver clubzone.com.
[00:59] SPEAKER_00: And he's actually now into a brand and business called My Zone, which for those of you who
[01:08] SPEAKER_00: joined us, we were just talking about the impact of pandemics on the event industry and
[01:13] SPEAKER_00: how it's going to shape things up.
[01:15] SPEAKER_00: But Mike himself loves to travel and spend several months per year in the road working
[01:19] SPEAKER_00: remotely.
[01:21] SPEAKER_00: And he was recognized in 2005 as a BIV top 30 under 30.
[01:27] SPEAKER_00: So Mike, thanks for joining us here in Cattons Podcast.
[01:30] SPEAKER_00: We're excited to have you.
[01:31] SPEAKER_01: Top 30 under 30.
[01:32] SPEAKER_01: That's back when I had hair.
[01:35] SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
[01:36] SPEAKER_00: Well, we all have the back when we had stories, so not to worry.
[01:42] SPEAKER_00: Hey, tell us a little bit about My Zone, our guests said a little bit about your dot
[01:47] SPEAKER_00: com experiences.
[01:48] SPEAKER_00: But what's your actual entrepreneurial journey?
[01:53] SPEAKER_00: When did it start and how did you get to where you are today?
[01:57] SPEAKER_01: Well, it started right out of university.
[01:59] SPEAKER_01: I took a job for six months selling life insurance and mutual funds.
[02:02] SPEAKER_01: And I realized I wasn't cut out for employment, far too argumentative with my bosses.
[02:07] SPEAKER_01: Reed, if you're listening in, sorry.
[02:10] SPEAKER_01: I just was always thinking outside the box and trying to do things the way that I wasn't
[02:16] SPEAKER_01: told to do them.
[02:18] SPEAKER_01: And so I started reading all these magazines at the time.
[02:20] SPEAKER_01: The internet was exploding.
[02:21] SPEAKER_01: I was reading like profit and fortune and all these sort of dot com things.
[02:25] SPEAKER_01: Billionaires were blowing up coming out of nowhere.
[02:28] SPEAKER_01: And that time, I mean, you could launch a pet food brand and be a billionaire.
[02:31] SPEAKER_01: So I'm just like, I have to leave what I'm doing and just do everything and jump into
[02:35] SPEAKER_01: the internet.
[02:36] SPEAKER_01: And so I started out by like teaching myself how to build a GeoCities website.
[02:40] SPEAKER_01: I taught myself HTML and slash, I think, flash animations.
[02:44] SPEAKER_01: I took a course at Cap College North Vancouver.
[02:46] SPEAKER_01: It was called the Microsoft Certified System Engineer Program at MCSC.
[02:51] SPEAKER_01: It was a big rage back then.
[02:52] SPEAKER_01: You know, you spend 20, 25 grand and you take these IT courses for a year and you come
[02:57] SPEAKER_01: out and get a fancy job and you're in the dot com world.
[03:00] SPEAKER_01: Well, I went into that path.
[03:01] SPEAKER_01: At the time I started a company, it was called exclusive dash promotions dot net.
[03:07] SPEAKER_01: And my vision was that I gave myself some career coaching as like, well, if I want to start
[03:11] SPEAKER_01: at dot com, where do I want to go?
[03:13] SPEAKER_01: I mean, you could do anything back then.
[03:14] SPEAKER_01: It was the Wild West.
[03:15] SPEAKER_01: I'm like, well, I love going to clubs.
[03:17] SPEAKER_01: I love drinking alcohol.
[03:18] SPEAKER_01: I'm single.
[03:18] SPEAKER_01: I love music and DJs.
[03:20] SPEAKER_01: I'm like, and the business model just came along.
[03:23] SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, let's build a nightlife information guy.
[03:25] SPEAKER_01: We hate waiting in lineups.
[03:26] SPEAKER_01: We didn't know how to get into clubs for free.
[03:28] SPEAKER_01: It's hard of paying cover charges.
[03:30] SPEAKER_01: So that's how we started it.
[03:32] SPEAKER_01: And so I went back to Cap College.
[03:34] SPEAKER_01: I took this MCSC program well within two months.
[03:37] SPEAKER_01: I was working part time on my business.
[03:39] SPEAKER_01: The business really started to take off.
[03:41] SPEAKER_01: They actually partnered with Joel Weinmaster, North Vancouver.
[03:44] SPEAKER_01: I dropped out of that program after two months.
[03:46] SPEAKER_01: Fortunately, I was paying an installment.
[03:50] SPEAKER_01: So I didn't lose the full 20 grand.
[03:52] SPEAKER_01: I went off the first five grand.
[03:54] SPEAKER_01: And yeah, we started club vibes dot com together.
[03:56] SPEAKER_01: It was probably like 1999 2000 ish.
[04:00] SPEAKER_01: And yeah, that was our first project.
[04:02] SPEAKER_01: I haven't stopped being a dot com entrepreneur since that day.
[04:06] SPEAKER_00: And so sick way into it.
[04:08] SPEAKER_00: I mentioned a few things along the way.
[04:10] SPEAKER_00: But sick way into where you are today.
[04:13] SPEAKER_00: I had the privilege of talking.
[04:15] SPEAKER_00: So I know you have a remote team working globally.
[04:19] SPEAKER_00: And you've meached out in the event industry.
[04:23] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't think there's a clean segue.
[04:26] SPEAKER_01: I mean, unless I bypass the sort of schizophrenic mind
[04:29] SPEAKER_01: path that got me to here, like, OK, let's just fast forward 15
[04:34] SPEAKER_01: years of entrepreneurial madness and ups and downs.
[04:37] SPEAKER_01: We launched my zone, maybe seven or so years ago.
[04:42] SPEAKER_01: And that's where we kind of had a collapse of the nightlife
[04:46] SPEAKER_01: industry.
[04:47] SPEAKER_01: And then we came into my zone.
[04:48] SPEAKER_01: And that's where we started instead of trying to build like a
[04:50] SPEAKER_01: software as a service platform where we were just flipping
[04:54] SPEAKER_01: switches and collecting residual revenue, we just started
[04:56] SPEAKER_01: trading time for money to build a sustainable platform that we
[05:01] SPEAKER_01: could go out and take additional sort of moonshot strategies
[05:04] SPEAKER_01: from there.
[05:04] SPEAKER_01: So it came from a place of collapse.
[05:08] SPEAKER_01: And so we started a web design graphic design software
[05:12] SPEAKER_01: development agency.
[05:13] SPEAKER_01: We spun off club zone tickets turned into tickets zone.com.
[05:17] SPEAKER_01: So we spun off a primary ticketing company.
[05:19] SPEAKER_01: We had a printing division within there, which is called
[05:22] SPEAKER_01: my zone printing.
[05:23] SPEAKER_01: And we've expanded that into a wide range of events related
[05:26] SPEAKER_01: printing services, ticketing printing, marketing, and
[05:30] SPEAKER_01: development.
[05:30] SPEAKER_01: So there's now four divisions within my zone.
[05:33] SPEAKER_01: And the overall the overarching focus up until this coronavirus
[05:38] SPEAKER_01: has been helping the event producers operate more efficiently.
[05:41] SPEAKER_01: So we typically meet with an event.
[05:45] SPEAKER_01: We'll find out what their specific pain points are.
[05:47] SPEAKER_01: And because we work with thousands of clients in the industry,
[05:49] SPEAKER_01: we know how to fix those problems.
[05:51] SPEAKER_01: So it may be as simple as helping optimize their website for
[05:54] SPEAKER_01: e-commerce conversion rates.
[05:56] SPEAKER_01: It might be switching over their primary ticketing or setting
[05:59] SPEAKER_01: up an admission strategy for clients like Glow Gardens, which
[06:03] SPEAKER_01: we helped take global last year.
[06:05] SPEAKER_01: It was everything.
[06:06] SPEAKER_01: Everything from branding to marketing to PR to ticketing
[06:09] SPEAKER_01: admissions to printing to every, you know.
[06:14] SPEAKER_01: So it really depends on the client and what their needs are.
[06:17] SPEAKER_01: We have a little promo video on our website.
[06:19] SPEAKER_01: We help some clients just get 500 tie-back wristbands and
[06:22] SPEAKER_01: other clients.
[06:23] SPEAKER_01: We help them roll out globally.
[06:26] Speaker UNKNOWN: So yeah.
[06:27] SPEAKER_00: So how do they identify an ideal client?
[06:32] SPEAKER_00: Because I'm envisioning, and I mean more the comprehensive
[06:38] SPEAKER_00: client servicing.
[06:40] SPEAKER_00: Because I'm sure there's lots of people out there with great
[06:42] SPEAKER_00: ideas of events that they would love to put on.
[06:48] SPEAKER_00: What's the genius do you think behind the person with an idea
[06:54] SPEAKER_00: versus who will be able to commercialize it and be an ongoing
[06:59] SPEAKER_00: client?
[07:01] SPEAKER_01: I think like the best client for me and the most successful event
[07:06] SPEAKER_01: producers, I think are the ones that are really collaborative and open
[07:10] SPEAKER_01: to change and ego-free and like to listen and believe in hiring good
[07:16] SPEAKER_01: people and getting out of the way.
[07:18] SPEAKER_01: An event is really like a startup and startups take strong
[07:21] SPEAKER_01: leadership and great team building and all the right skills and
[07:25] SPEAKER_01: communication platforms and accountability systems.
[07:28] SPEAKER_01: And I think there's a lot of event promoters out there that take
[07:32] SPEAKER_01: it like it's a sort of a lifestyle business.
[07:35] SPEAKER_01: It's a for fun thing.
[07:36] SPEAKER_01: They don't necessarily take it seriously.
[07:39] SPEAKER_01: Kind of like the dot com startups in 99,000.
[07:41] SPEAKER_01: There was a lot of crap in the mix that weren't followed
[07:44] SPEAKER_01: and followed business principles.
[07:46] SPEAKER_01: And those people kind of got weeded out.
[07:48] SPEAKER_01: There's see there's a lot of attrition in the events and
[07:50] SPEAKER_01: history.
[07:50] SPEAKER_01: So I like to look for people that are established, people that have
[07:53] SPEAKER_01: made it through their first couple of years that are ego-free,
[07:57] SPEAKER_01: hungry to learn and grow and respectful and ambitious.
[08:01] SPEAKER_01: We try to avoid the ones that are, you know,
[08:04] SPEAKER_01: that think they know everything because they'll usually be gone.
[08:08] SPEAKER_01: You have to adapt.
[08:09] SPEAKER_01: Like the industry is changing so fast, not just from a technology
[08:13] SPEAKER_01: and a marketing perspective.
[08:15] SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, if you just look back 10, 15 years ago,
[08:18] SPEAKER_01: it used to be that fliring and phone calls was like how they did
[08:21] SPEAKER_01: business and it was radio and TV and then suddenly you got into
[08:25] SPEAKER_01: Facebook and social and and even the tools within social are
[08:29] SPEAKER_01: evolving so quickly.
[08:30] SPEAKER_01: So any promoter today who thinks they know everything that they're
[08:34] SPEAKER_01: gone in three years, they have to be humble and hungry.
[08:38] SPEAKER_01: And it's also things adapt very quickly in terms of what the
[08:42] SPEAKER_01: consumers want.
[08:43] SPEAKER_01: They could be look now like this huge surge in the last couple
[08:46] SPEAKER_01: years of these experiential Christmas events.
[08:48] SPEAKER_01: Well, we've already seen them transform and based on the surveys
[08:51] SPEAKER_01: and data we collect, we know that what worked last year
[08:55] SPEAKER_01: is not going to work next year.
[08:57] SPEAKER_01: So there's, you have to be very responsive agile, adaptive to survive
[09:03] SPEAKER_01: in the events industry.
[09:04] SPEAKER_00: Well, and that's a good point as far as being data driven.
[09:08] SPEAKER_00: I mean, what, what do you see as the emerging trends, even if
[09:13] SPEAKER_00: we take the short term in the next two years, hard to ask the
[09:16] SPEAKER_00: question today versus two months ago, it's probably completely
[09:19] SPEAKER_00: different answer.
[09:20] SPEAKER_01: So, I think trends appear in the events industry run for the
[09:23] SPEAKER_01: hells.
[09:24] SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I'm not laughing because it's funny.
[09:27] SPEAKER_00: I'm laughing because it's tragic.
[09:29] SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, it's awful.
[09:30] SPEAKER_01: I mean, right now, so the international conferences are the
[09:34] SPEAKER_01: first to go.
[09:35] SPEAKER_01: Anything that's involved, like, you know, Facebook's FA conference
[09:38] SPEAKER_01: shut down.
[09:39] SPEAKER_01: There was a, I read a news article about a week ago and that's old news
[09:43] SPEAKER_01: now in the coronavirus world.
[09:45] SPEAKER_01: That was 260 conferences were shut down in, in Europe within
[09:50] SPEAKER_01: a couple of days.
[09:52] SPEAKER_01: So, all of the major international conferences are pretty much
[09:54] SPEAKER_01: shut down and, you know, the Olympics haven't, hasn't shut down
[09:57] SPEAKER_01: yet, but it, you know, it probably will or will be moved to, you
[10:00] SPEAKER_01: know, TV only.
[10:01] SPEAKER_01: So, that's the first wave of events that are collapsing.
[10:05] SPEAKER_01: The localized events, we're not seeing a collapse yet, but it's,
[10:08] SPEAKER_01: you know, it's.
[10:10] SPEAKER_01: Watch the Joe Rogan podcast.
[10:12] SPEAKER_01: I think it's how, clearly, but what's definitely happening is
[10:16] SPEAKER_01: those events are trimming budgets.
[10:18] SPEAKER_01: They are being very careful where they spend, which I think is smart.
[10:23] SPEAKER_01: But what I'm seeing a trend right now, a really interesting one, is
[10:26] SPEAKER_01: I've had a lot of clients, they've come to me and they're asking,
[10:30] SPEAKER_01: how do we prepare for this virus?
[10:32] SPEAKER_01: What should we do?
[10:34] SPEAKER_01: And if I have another group of clients that are coming to me, just
[10:36] SPEAKER_01: telling me the answer, which I'm telling to other clients that
[10:39] SPEAKER_01: don't yet know is you need to find like your, which parts of your
[10:43] SPEAKER_01: business are virus proof?
[10:45] SPEAKER_01: So, one of the best strategies I recommend is that people move their
[10:51] SPEAKER_01: business online.
[10:53] SPEAKER_01: So, we're seeing that in the conference space where people are still holding
[10:56] SPEAKER_01: the conference, but now they're charging for it and they're making it like an
[10:59] SPEAKER_01: online e-learning experience and people are just not gathering.
[11:03] SPEAKER_01: So, if you're an education-based conference, you can still push forward just
[11:06] SPEAKER_01: moving those conferences online.
[11:08] SPEAKER_01: And I've got another client who does craft, craft shows
[11:15] SPEAKER_01: around the Vancouver and Edmonton and I was recommending for her is like,
[11:19] SPEAKER_01: let's find a way to push your products online so people can actually purchase
[11:23] SPEAKER_01: the products without having to go to the show.
[11:27] SPEAKER_01: So, there's different ways like for us for our business,
[11:30] SPEAKER_01: our pivoting strategy is really just tackle another industry
[11:34] SPEAKER_01: temporarily and try and find an industry that is synergistic with events.
[11:39] SPEAKER_01: So, we're going to start targeting cannabis, alcohol and
[11:44] SPEAKER_01: potential iOS gaming places where there's similar demographics.
[11:50] SPEAKER_01: Like we have a huge databases of customers that have gone to like
[11:54] SPEAKER_01: low-Christmas events.
[11:55] SPEAKER_01: So, we have a lot of experience working with moms, with young children that have
[11:59] SPEAKER_01: been to those events.
[12:00] SPEAKER_01: So, I think that the smart event producers right now will look to pivot quickly
[12:06] SPEAKER_01: for the short term.
[12:07] SPEAKER_01: I think in three to six months things will bounce back fine.
[12:10] SPEAKER_01: But if they don't react, if they don't get into e-commerce or get into e-learning
[12:15] SPEAKER_01: or find an industry to support other than that,
[12:21] SPEAKER_01: they may be out of business in six months.
[12:23] SPEAKER_00: Wow.
[12:25] SPEAKER_00: I love your wording on what aspects of your business are virus proof, right?
[12:34] SPEAKER_00: And I can't help but spring to forefront.
[12:37] SPEAKER_00: And my girlfriend's posted on Facebook the other day.
[12:39] SPEAKER_00: They said something like, you know, so excited to have jazz hands.
[12:43] SPEAKER_00: I've been waiting for this opportunity to, you know, be able to say hi
[12:48] SPEAKER_00: in shake hands with jazz hands.
[12:49] SPEAKER_00: And of course, I'm the opposite.
[12:51] SPEAKER_00: My whole thing is, oh my god, we're human beings, right?
[12:53] SPEAKER_00: We need the physical presence and the physical energy of combination
[12:59] SPEAKER_00: of digital and physical.
[13:02] SPEAKER_00: You know, how do we maintain our humanity in
[13:09] SPEAKER_00: proximity to people at events and stay kind of virus proof at the same time?
[13:15] SPEAKER_00: Is there a magic?
[13:15] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, that's a real thing.
[13:17] SPEAKER_01: The number one solution I recommend for this virus that I don't think they can stop
[13:22] SPEAKER_01: and the epidemiologist on the Joe Rogan podcast agrees like,
[13:26] SPEAKER_01: this is going everywhere.
[13:27] SPEAKER_01: And the most important thing we can do is they just call it social distancing is,
[13:31] SPEAKER_01: you can't stop it, you can just slow it down.
[13:33] SPEAKER_01: And events are the exact opposite of what we need.
[13:37] SPEAKER_01: So I unfortunately believe that events should be more proactive in shutting down.
[13:44] SPEAKER_01: I think that the government responses often quite delayed.
[13:47] SPEAKER_01: It's up to us, you know, small business owners to be proactive with that.
[13:52] SPEAKER_01: But interesting, a friend of mine, who's in Vancouver originally from Beijing,
[13:56] SPEAKER_01: he actually launched clubs on with me in Beijing and we went to the Olympics in 2008 together.
[14:01] SPEAKER_01: And he was telling me he still has a lot of friends back in China.
[14:04] SPEAKER_01: And what they're doing for social activities right now while in mass quarantine is actually what you and I
[14:09] SPEAKER_01: are doing except with a lot more videos.
[14:11] SPEAKER_01: Is this friends are having like these whiskey and
[14:15] SPEAKER_01: and they've got, you know, they're all using Zoom video and they're all just
[14:18] SPEAKER_01: getting and socializing.
[14:19] SPEAKER_01: So I think if you look at the share price for Zoom, there's a reason why it's up like 60%
[14:25] SPEAKER_01: in the last month is there's a few players in the space that are related to stay at home
[14:30] SPEAKER_01: or delivery of food or the next like says the phone stocks.
[14:34] SPEAKER_01: How do we stay connected in this day and age?
[14:37] SPEAKER_01: It's sad, but this is it.
[14:39] SPEAKER_01: It's going to be staying at home.
[14:42] SPEAKER_01: It's going to be not going to birth kids, birthday parties.
[14:45] SPEAKER_01: It's going to kids are going to get pulled out of school.
[14:47] SPEAKER_01: But the big events are going to fall.
[14:49] SPEAKER_01: And we're just going to have to connect through video conferencing until things quiet down.
[14:54] SPEAKER_00: What do you have an estimated timeline based on what you've been listening to?
[14:58] SPEAKER_01: Three to six months.
[14:59] SPEAKER_01: So I think that any events that are in sort of Q1, Q2 or big trouble, Q3, possible,
[15:06] SPEAKER_01: Q4 should be pretty safe.
[15:08] SPEAKER_01: I'm not an expert.
[15:09] SPEAKER_01: I'm just sort of going with what I've been reading online.
[15:12] SPEAKER_01: So I'd like to think that the pushing events back into fall is a safe bet.
[15:20] SPEAKER_01: I had quite a few clients that have pushed their fall events even into spring.
[15:24] SPEAKER_01: With升ing concerns that had made drag on longer.
[15:27] SPEAKER_01: It's one thing to say to the virus is going to slow down and heading into the summer.
[15:32] SPEAKER_01: When it gets warmer.
[15:33] SPEAKER_01: they tend to do that.
[15:35] SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're hopeful to be anywhere from six months record breaking speed to a year and a half away.
[15:45] SPEAKER_01: So it's hard to say.
[15:47] SPEAKER_01: But if I was an event producer with a large event in the first six months of 2020, I would be looking at either
[15:53] SPEAKER_01: Canceling it or rescheduling it right away.
[15:55] SPEAKER_00: And so Mike, just going back to your entrepreneurial journey and we talked about this in our intro call as but the, you know, you've had another major pivot.
[16:04] SPEAKER_00: You describe it as the collapse of the nightlife industry.
[16:08] SPEAKER_00: When you were, that was your whole entire business model was based on that.
[16:14] SPEAKER_00: Obviously, we're going to have to have another follow up interview in like 12 months so we can see where you've pivoted.
[16:18] SPEAKER_00: I'm totally curious.
[16:20] SPEAKER_00: But for right now, what, what are you doing in this little mini crisis that, you know, like you said, where, for some, there's crises and for other, there's massive opportunity and whether there's a, you know, whether it's a pandemic or a financial crisis or whatever the crisis is.
[16:38] SPEAKER_00: How does that affect your day to day operations?
[16:45] SPEAKER_00: What do you do? What do you do when something external is happening?
[16:50] SPEAKER_01: When I went through my first round of restructuring that was after the Serialic 1012 beer mark when we had to, we almost went bankrupt and we had to sell off assets.
[16:57] SPEAKER_01: That's when we sold off club zone.
[17:00] SPEAKER_01: I read a book on restructuring companies and one of the key points I took out of the book is that the biggest mistake that entrepreneurs make is they don't cut deep enough and they don't cut fast enough.
[17:13] SPEAKER_01: And so when you're in a downturn, what happens is you have this self reinforcing downward spiral.
[17:18] SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, you lay some people off, you lose some clients, you lay more people off and your revenue goes down, you sort of, you cut your way down, down, down.
[17:25] SPEAKER_01: And you're really trying to do the analogy, think of like a plane.
[17:30] SPEAKER_01: It's coming. It's actually got to pull it up, pull it up, pull it up, and then it starts to go again.
[17:34] SPEAKER_01: And when you do it wrong, you have like this long, slow round.
[17:39] SPEAKER_01: So not cutting deep enough fast enough. And that was a big learning experience for me in hindsight. I went back.
[17:44] SPEAKER_01: It was sort of a two, three year transition where we did rounds and rounds and rounds.
[17:49] SPEAKER_01: And man, if I just ripped off the bandaid at the beginning, I could have been back up within three months.
[17:56] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[17:56] SPEAKER_01: So that's sort of the approach that we're taking right now.
[17:59] SPEAKER_01: It's, there's a huge human element, aimed to that with layoffs and having teams that are committed to you.
[18:06] SPEAKER_01: That's extremely painful to go through, but there's definitely big rounds of layoffs.
[18:13] SPEAKER_01: And we're doing things like we're trying to push people to other companies temporarily where we can hopefully bring them back again, because I think we'll be rehiring like crazy in September, October, once this thing has passed.
[18:26] SPEAKER_01: So cutting deep, cutting fast and pivoting those are the two things.
[18:30] SPEAKER_01: So we're trying to find as we pivot, like we have a, for example, one of the four divisions is the marketing agency.
[18:36] SPEAKER_01: Instead of going after event producers, we're going after businesses that we think are virus proof and highly synergistic with that.
[18:44] SPEAKER_01: So that's why we've targeted alcohol.
[18:46] SPEAKER_01: A lot of our events, they need alcohol sponsors.
[18:49] SPEAKER_01: And so having a close relationship with alcohol companies could be handy.
[18:53] SPEAKER_01: One of the alcohol's main marketing strategies is event marketing.
[19:00] SPEAKER_01: So going into that space, I think people that are locked in quarantine are going to be drinking more.
[19:06] SPEAKER_01: So yeah, we're going to start targeting some micro breweries and things like that.
[19:12] SPEAKER_01: A lot of our festival clients have close relationships and we've coordinated on the corporate sponsorship deal.
[19:16] SPEAKER_01: We've worked with a lot of these alcohol companies before we understand their demographic, their customer base, very well, is from years of being in nightlife.
[19:23] SPEAKER_01: So that's an example of how we're looking to pivot that.
[19:26] SPEAKER_01: And on the web developments and graph design side, it's just instead of targeting event based businesses.
[19:31] SPEAKER_01: It's just, you know, adjusting our lead generation process to get other industries.
[19:36] SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
[19:38] SPEAKER_00: And you mentioned cannabis as well.
[19:40] SPEAKER_00: I got to just throw that in there because it's kind of an emergency emerging sector. Do you see opportunity there?
[19:47] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
[19:47] SPEAKER_01: Well, we have quite a bit of experience there. So about three years ago, we helped a company called greenrush.com get started in.
[19:54] SPEAKER_01: It's an on-demand cannabis delivery platform. It's still online to this day.
[19:58] SPEAKER_01: They had a bit of a setback with financial collapse, the financial markets collapse for the cannabis industry about a year ago.
[20:06] SPEAKER_01: So they're in the middle of some restructuring, but no, it was a wild ride with green rush.
[20:11] SPEAKER_01: And we learned a lot about the industry of a lot of technology and marketing experience in that space.
[20:15] SPEAKER_01: It's very challenging for cannabis companies to market themselves due to all the regulations.
[20:21] SPEAKER_01: So the keyword there is circumvention is finding your way around.
[20:26] SPEAKER_01: You know, the ultimate takes a creative thinking.
[20:29] SPEAKER_01: So you can't go A to B in marketing world.
[20:33] SPEAKER_01: Like a normal company is like, you buy your Google ads, you'd drive it to your website.
[20:36] SPEAKER_01: You buy your Facebook ads, you'd go to the website.
[20:39] SPEAKER_01: In cannabis world, it's like A to B to C. C is you.
[20:42] SPEAKER_01: And B is the intermediary that allows you to circumvent the rules from A.
[20:46] SPEAKER_01: So that is the general strategy there.
[20:48] SPEAKER_01: And one example of something we're working on for a client in the space is there's a new game, an iOS game called Hazy Days.
[20:57] SPEAKER_01: It's just in beta right now in Canada.
[21:00] SPEAKER_01: And it's think of clash of clans meets farm bill meets Narcos.
[21:07] SPEAKER_01: I don't know Narcos, but.
[21:09] SPEAKER_01: Well, think of, you know, clash of clans.
[21:12] SPEAKER_00: I don't, you know what? I'm not a gamer, but I know farm bill.
[21:16] SPEAKER_00: I know farm bill.
[21:16] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[21:17] SPEAKER_01: Think of farm bill, but we'd okay.
[21:19] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[21:20] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[21:21] SPEAKER_01: And so you can advertise these games online.
[21:23] SPEAKER_01: So if you're a say company like wheat maps, you can't go to Google and say, you know, come to wheat maps and buy wheat off of our, you know, customer learn
[21:30] SPEAKER_01: Spencer's.
[21:32] SPEAKER_01: But you can promote the game.
[21:34] SPEAKER_01: The game can be that intermediary step.
[21:35] SPEAKER_01: And what we're doing, we're building technology.
[21:37] SPEAKER_01: So that the game will track which cannabis company has sent the traffic to the game.
[21:43] SPEAKER_01: And then within the game, we're changing up the branding elements.
[21:47] SPEAKER_01: So wheat maps sends over 100,000 app installs of this role playing this multiplayer game.
[21:54] SPEAKER_01: Then they'll have tons of exposure opportunities within the game.
[21:57] SPEAKER_01: They can build branding.
[21:58] SPEAKER_01: And so we can go out there and buy Google ads on behalf of a cannabis company.
[22:02] SPEAKER_01: We can buy Facebook ads.
[22:04] SPEAKER_01: We can give them the branding impressions, build the relationships with customer, even do a profit share from the in game upsell.
[22:10] SPEAKER_01: So that's an example of like an A to B to C strategies.
[22:14] SPEAKER_01: We work with them to promote a game.
[22:15] SPEAKER_01: The game promotes them.
[22:17] SPEAKER_01: They can't go direct.
[22:19] SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot, there's a lot we had to learn about even just scirting the rules with Google and Facebook.
[22:24] SPEAKER_01: But after a couple of years of doing that, I think we have some good strategies.
[22:29] SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
[22:31] SPEAKER_00: And I have a, so what are you're based in BC?
[22:35] SPEAKER_00: You're in Vancouver.
[22:37] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[22:37] SPEAKER_00: You're specie born and raised.
[22:39] SPEAKER_00: What is unique about where you live?
[22:43] SPEAKER_00: Why do you love where you live?
[22:44] SPEAKER_00: Other than clearly, yeah, I'm sitting on my office with my view.
[22:48] SPEAKER_00: But yeah, that's a pretty good reason of beautiful sunny day today.
[22:51] SPEAKER_01: That's downtown Vancouver.
[22:53] SPEAKER_00: That's pretty cool.
[22:55] SPEAKER_00: And why make over?
[22:57] SPEAKER_01: I mean, born and raised and I just love the mountains.
[23:04] SPEAKER_01: It's tough.
[23:05] SPEAKER_01: It's tough leaving a city.
[23:07] SPEAKER_01: I'm not totally permanently attached to Vancouver.
[23:10] SPEAKER_01: I actually don't feel like I found my home yet.
[23:13] SPEAKER_01: I've spent some time traveling and Maui feels like I'm probably a little subtle there at some point.
[23:21] SPEAKER_01: I just love skiing and I love diving.
[23:23] SPEAKER_01: But I also love my friends in the city and staying close to family.
[23:27] SPEAKER_01: So I think the ideal end goal, if I can battle my way through this coronavirus collapse,
[23:32] SPEAKER_01: is a condo in Vancouver, a place in which I'm a place of malion.
[23:39] SPEAKER_01: But I've got a kid in school now who kind of, you have to watch out for that.
[23:44] SPEAKER_01: So I think I'm locked here for a while.
[23:46] SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I don't born and raised and I've lived all around Vancouver.
[23:50] SPEAKER_01: It's just a beautiful city.
[23:52] SPEAKER_01: I love just being outdoors, like hiking and summer skiing and winter.
[23:56] SPEAKER_01: And you know, quick flights to lots of cool places for me.
[23:59] SPEAKER_00: Well, and if you could send out a message to global listeners listening about doing business in Canada.
[24:10] SPEAKER_00: Why here?
[24:11] SPEAKER_00: What should be our business attraction, the work?
[24:13] SPEAKER_01: Oh, man, I'm probably not good for that.
[24:17] SPEAKER_01: So you're promoting business in Canada.
[24:20] SPEAKER_01: You might have to cut this out of the podcast.
[24:23] SPEAKER_01: I'm a big, like we have, you can't see that the pins on the map behind me because they're red.
[24:30] SPEAKER_01: But we have people in, I can't even keep track now.
[24:33] SPEAKER_01: I think there's 15 countries around the world.
[24:35] SPEAKER_01: I'm big on, like we work in a resulatory, did work environment, remote.
[24:41] SPEAKER_01: It's remote.
[24:41] SPEAKER_01: A synchronous distributed.
[24:43] SPEAKER_01: We're actually trying to come up with our own branded keyword for our work environment called Rad.
[24:48] SPEAKER_01: And just what it means is we hire the best people from anywhere in the world.
[24:53] SPEAKER_01: And we plug them into a work environment where we can't tell the difference.
[24:56] SPEAKER_01: Like we've got quite a, there's about 13, 15 people here in Vancouver.
[24:59] SPEAKER_01: But I can't tell the difference of working with somebody who's in gas town or somebody who's in Croatia.
[25:04] SPEAKER_00: Right.
[25:05] SPEAKER_01: So if I can find somebody who's better and more affordable somewhere else in the world, why would I hire locally?
[25:10] SPEAKER_01: So we do have maybe 15, 20 employees in Canada and then the rest of them are scattered all across the world.
[25:18] SPEAKER_01: So why supporting business in Canada?
[25:24] SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think we're all connected.
[25:27] SPEAKER_01: We're all the same everywhere in the world.
[25:29] SPEAKER_01: There's amazing people out there.
[25:30] SPEAKER_01: I think for me, Canada is a lifestyle thing.
[25:33] SPEAKER_01: It's a political safety thing.
[25:35] SPEAKER_01: Like I'm not a fan of what's going on, self-reporter in terms of politics.
[25:40] SPEAKER_01: I like sort of the open multiculturalism of Canadian society.
[25:44] SPEAKER_01: I love the sort of more authentic apologetics, sorry, outdoors, beer drinking, culture.
[25:50] SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'll just board and raise that way.
[25:51] SPEAKER_01: So for me, Canada is a cultural personal lifestyle choice, I guess.
[25:56] SPEAKER_01: Maybe even a political one.
[25:58] SPEAKER_01: But in terms of business, I think there's a lot of challenges in Canada.
[26:01] SPEAKER_01: And I think Canadian businesses really need to embrace globalization to find affordable talent.
[26:10] SPEAKER_01: It's very hard finding senior developers in Canada, especially now with Amazon opening up and Facebook.
[26:16] SPEAKER_01: And all these big companies are just gobbling up the remaining tech talent.
[26:20] SPEAKER_01: So you try and find a senior PHP developer in Vancouver.
[26:23] SPEAKER_01: They good luck you're fighting with Amazon for that person right now.
[26:26] SPEAKER_01: So I think to thrive in Canada, you really need to open yourself up to the world.
[26:43] Speaker UNKNOWN: I think most then, you know, a little more looking your world and you're pop out of Aberdeen.
[26:51] SPEAKER_01: And I know that there's a lot of your question bloggers and support I think.
[26:54] Speaker UNKNOWN: I know when I saw that with YouTube earlier this morning as well, I was like,
[26:54] Speaker UNKNOWN: with that several Netflix NewsPen.
[26:55] Speaker UNKNOWN: published it in the very old digital fabric world FOR THE SAD YOU DO TO LET GO
[26:56] Speaker UNKNOWN: 
[26:56] Speaker UNKNOWN: In this week's community of inspired, you know, AWS work with integration that's helped
[27:01] SPEAKER_01: environment. Most businesses, they run on an operating system. The two most common ones
[27:08] SPEAKER_01: that I know of, ones called EOS from the book traction on demand. That's a lot of people
[27:12] SPEAKER_01: in EO, entrepreneur organization are using that one. And then the one that we're on is
[27:17] SPEAKER_01: from, it's called the Rockefeller habits. It's from Vern Harnish and his latest book,
[27:22] SPEAKER_01: Scaling Up. And we've worked with some of their coaches to set that infrastructure.
[27:27] SPEAKER_01: Well, we've taken the infrastructure from Rockefeller habits. And after 12 years of iteration,
[27:32] SPEAKER_01: we've just made it remote and made it global. So, yeah, we've just taken an existing system
[27:38] SPEAKER_00: and modified it. Well, and of your work for your particular crew, how much, what's the percentage
[27:47] SPEAKER_01: of your crew that are remote? So, I mean, we have, we have three actual physical offices, one in
[27:58] SPEAKER_01: Zagreb, one in Bosnia and Herzegovina, one in Gastown. We've had offices in Argentina,
[28:06] SPEAKER_01: temporarily. We have quite a few shared work spaces like I had a space here in Bernabé at Regis
[28:10] SPEAKER_01: for a while that we were using. We've got another one out near Kitsolano called Sweet Genius that
[28:16] SPEAKER_01: some of our team uses. So, we let people choose either they can work from home, they can go to one
[28:21] SPEAKER_01: of our offices or they can get a, you know, a Regis or a wee work or what have you. It's really up
[28:27] SPEAKER_01: to them. The point is is that we let them decide what works best for them. So, some people have
[28:31] SPEAKER_01: like great little spare bedroom and they just, they love where they live and they want to work
[28:35] SPEAKER_01: from home. Great other people like, oh my god, I like have kids like, no, and we get them
[28:39] SPEAKER_01: maybe Regis or wee work. So, and then those that do work from like, we have a pretty big office in
[28:45] SPEAKER_01: Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. There might be like 20 desks or 12 desks there and 25 people,
[28:53] SPEAKER_01: but they just sort of come a couple days a week for so many. One thing that's been helpful here
[28:58] SPEAKER_01: in Vancouver is we actually meet up once a week in person up until now. Now we're going to stop
[29:03] SPEAKER_01: doing that for social distancing reasons, but yeah, that's probably the biggest challenge in
[29:09] SPEAKER_01: the remote work environment is how to maintain those close social connections when your distance.
[29:16] SPEAKER_01: And there's there's lots of little tricks we do there. Absolutely. Mike, it has been a pleasure. We're
[29:21] SPEAKER_00: getting to the end. How can people follow up with you after this podcast? What's the, what's the
[29:26] SPEAKER_00: best solution? And maybe do we need to wait three months or? No, I mean, I'm, I've never been so hungry
[29:32] SPEAKER_01: for business. So if you need a smart digital marketing agency, if need help with software development,
[29:39] SPEAKER_01: even if you're an event business that's looking to make a rapid transition to survive this
[29:44] SPEAKER_01: coronavirus reach out to me. How to get ahold of me? Just email Mike at myzone.com. You can see us
[29:52] SPEAKER_01: online myzone.com. It's funny. I grew up on social media and I've been really active on it, but
[29:57] SPEAKER_01: I don't in the last two years. I don't read anything on social. So I'm not on Twitter, I'm not on
[30:02] SPEAKER_01: Facebook. We run social media marketing, but I'm just sober and tout. It's like the end of the day,
[30:07] SPEAKER_01: I don't want anything to do with that. So yeah, best is just to hit me up on email. Mike at myzone.
[30:12] SPEAKER_00: Awesome. And any last, any last sound bites of information or insights for the, for the future that
[30:20] SPEAKER_01: you'd love to leave with audience? It's cliche, but love what you do. And it doesn't feel like
[30:26] SPEAKER_01: work. I've been working so much. It's not many hours a week for the last 20 years. Like, how do you
[30:31] SPEAKER_01: do it? How do you ride this out? I'm like, I love what I do. So if you're thinking about starting
[30:35] SPEAKER_01: up a business, just like pick what you're passionate about and dive in, stay humble, keep learning,
[30:42] SPEAKER_01: don't, don't develop an ego. You know, I've been at this for 20 plus years out every year. I
[30:47] SPEAKER_01: feel like my knowledge improves like 30 to 50%. I will look at myself today five years from now,
[30:53] SPEAKER_01: go man, that I was an idiot. And as long as you keep realizing that, you will succeed. And don't
[30:58] SPEAKER_00: give up. Just keep going and you'll never. Awesome. Mike, it's been a pleasure. I love your energy.
[31:03] SPEAKER_00: I love your energy and get to keep tabs on what Joe Rogan has to say and and myzone. I look forward
[31:09] SPEAKER_00: to connecting with you again. Awesome. Thanks. Go team. Hey there. Thanks for taking the time today to
[31:16] SPEAKER_00: listen to British Columbia's podcast on the Canada's podcast network. We hope you enjoyed the show
[31:21] SPEAKER_00: today. Make sure you sign up for our newsletters and write a review for us on iTunes.
[31:26] SPEAKER_00: Connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or at Canada's podcast.com.
[31:33] SPEAKER_00: You can check out what other entrepreneurs are doing across the country. I'm Angela Faye. See you
[31:38] SPEAKER_00: next time.