[00:00:00] Chris Meade: So, I mean, I think we'd both be lying if we could be predictable about when viral stuff is going to happen. Right. It just kind of happens. But the best way to make it happen, I've seen is just get more shots up. What I really care about is you going out and having the best time ever. So the next time you're in Santa Monica, playing at the beach, you are a billboard for my next hundred customers.

[00:00:29] Jason Wong: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of building box podcast. Today I'm joined by Chris Meade friend of mine. I actually met in person in San Diego sometimes last year, it was actually fairly surprising. I didn't expect to see you. Um, and I remember you called out my name and like who, um, and it took a while because you know, when you meet people on Twitter, you don't really know what they look like.

[00:00:55] Jason Wong: So for the longest time, I actually didn't know what you look like. Yeah. [00:01:00] You are just so accomplished your Forbes 30 under 30, you joined that list with your brother and your childhood best friend. You guys invented the world's first four way volleyball net. And I think this is something that it's so, so cool to me because no one I know really invented stuff.

[00:01:18] Jason Wong: Um, so I do want to take this time to ask you a little bit more about the game. Before we get jumped into it. I want it to ask, like what sparked the entire idea of a four way volleyball game?

[00:01:30] Chris Meade: Yeah, one night we're, uh, we're all at different stages in our life. Right? I was pretty miserable working a sales job.

[00:01:36] Chris Meade: It's one of those things where you wake up every day and you're like, shit, I gotta do this next 50 years of my life. And, uh, yeah pretty miserable. So up one night kind of brainstorming, like what can we do to change your life? What could we do differently. What idea could we do, uh, we we've always had like e-commerce hustles or side things that we sold online, whether it's selling merch or importing DH gate products.

[00:01:58] Chris Meade: Right. But nothing like a [00:02:00] real massive business. And we were writing down a bunch of ideas one night and four wave volleyball was the best one on that list. And it's one of those things where you're thinking about something and you're like, oh shit, it's probably been taken and you Google it. And five seconds later it's been taken.

[00:02:14] Chris Meade: There's nothing on the internet for it. We couldn't find a single image, a single listicle. And we're like, yeah. Why not us? Like this seems too easy. So that was the, that was the brainchild back in 2017.

[00:02:25] Jason Wong: Were are you guys involved in sports before that or?

[00:02:28] Chris Meade: Yeah. Yeah. We all grew up playing sports. We all actually never played volleyball a day in our life

[00:02:32] Chris Meade: though.

[00:02:33] Jason Wong: That's hilarious. It's it's like, uh, reminds me to me building doe. I've never worn lashes before. It's I think like, in some sense, some entrepreneurs build to solve their own problems, others to solve other people's problems. And it's totally okay for that to happen to you. Right?

[00:02:49] Chris Meade: Yeah. Um, and as the business kind of went on and we actually were solving a problem, I don't know about you, but when I go to the beach and my girl only wants to tan and I don't want to swim [00:03:00] or the water's cold. I'm bored. I'm bored out of my mind, the game on the beach, but I can play with my friends, work up a sweat and then jump into the water. So it did actually solve a problem.

[00:03:10] Jason Wong: What I like about, um, CrossNet was that the surface area that you have to move is so much smaller and I'm not an active guy.

[00:03:18] Jason Wong: You asked me to start running back and, you know, front and back court. I'm not doing that. Um, so that's why I loved about it that you, you actually, uh, your, your team Joelle gifted me a set a while ago. Um, and it's, it's been so fun just having that. Um, and it's so fun to see my friends products in stores. It's, I don't know.

[00:03:40] Jason Wong: It's, it's the most rewarding part of having this network of friends. I think like me and you, we know very similar people and just seeing each other's stuff in retail store, it's like go you.

[00:03:50] Chris Meade: A hundred percent. It's so cool

[00:03:52] Chris Meade: people stuff around

[00:03:53] Chris Meade: and like, make sure they have a little bit, you know, I started selling like in person selling for your friend brands.

[00:03:58] Jason Wong: It's so rewarding to see your own [00:04:00] products. But I think for me, just having you guys as my friend and seeing you guys succeed has been so fulfilling. And, um, if I remember correctly, you guys are in 3000 stores now.

[00:04:11] Chris Meade: Yeah. A little bit over that, but yeah, 3000.

[00:04:12] Jason Wong: How long did that

[00:04:13] Jason Wong: take?

[00:04:14] Chris Meade: We started it in 2018. Uh, towards the end of 2018, we got into two stores, uh, thought I lost the whole deal.

[00:04:21] Chris Meade: Like the buyer never even emailed me back at the two stores. And then all of a sudden, one night he emails me and says, yo, everything's sold out overnight. And that was the night of our first like viral video. Grinding since 2018, but eventually it just started to scale really easily. And we went from like 30 store location to Dick's, which was like 800 stores from Dick's to Walmart.

[00:04:42] Chris Meade: So they just kind of started stacking pretty

[00:04:44] Chris Meade: quickly.

[00:04:45] Jason Wong: Right. And I I'm assuming it wasn't easy, um, for brands to get into these massive retailers, you're either a famous celebrity you're funded so much that it's okay for you just toss [00:05:00] money for all these firms. Or you persistence, uh, and just kept emailing them.

[00:05:05] Jason Wong: What, which one were you?

[00:05:06] Chris Meade: That was persistance. We definitely didn't have any money.

[00:05:09] Jason Wong: Gave you that easy one tossed you the easy ball.

[00:05:12] Chris Meade: Yeah, it was literally just being persistent, going back to my sales days at Uber. So I actually launched Uber eats in Rhode Island and Boston. So I'd have to just message like the heads of restaurants, the GMs, and just try to be persistent on LinkedIn or cold email, trying to get them to join the app.

[00:05:29] Chris Meade: So that's what I did. I was literally adding people on LinkedIn saying, Hey, I've this dope idea? Like, this is a great game. People are coming into your store looking for something like this. You don't have it. And I had literally send, I remember sending like the target buyer, like a section of their sporting goods section, like completely raided, like no, no inventory.

[00:05:48] Chris Meade: I'm like, dude, this is pathetic. Like how do you not have Crossnet here? Like your section's empty and those kinds of conversations and just keeping it like talking like a human. You get so many DMS, [00:06:00] I get so many DMs and you could disqualify them and half of a second, right? Shit, garbage , delete.. Like you gotta be able to know how to make people stop, look and be interested.

[00:06:09] Chris Meade: And I think just having that human approach, a lot of people get nervous and kind of forget that when they are selling.

[00:06:15] Jason Wong: And the nervousness might come from like the idea of maybe this person gets emailed hundreds of times, who am I to them? And I I'm, I get that too. And I've been in this business for a while and when I talked to retail buyers, I'm like, uh, I'm like, how am I different?

[00:06:32] Jason Wong: I started doubting myself. Right. And how do you approach it? Because I understand getting more personal, but how do you differentiate your product in front of the buyer and perhaps a little bit easier because you are inventing a whole new product. Whereas I made an improvement of a product. So it was, I would say a little bit easier for you to show that differentiation, but how would you do it in a way where they wouldn't just look the other way and be like ads, whatever, because you, you could send too long of a message [00:07:00] or you can send too short and not explain enough.

[00:07:01] Jason Wong: How do you go about the first message?

[00:07:04] Chris Meade: A hundred percent. I mean, like you said, right, you hit the nail on the head. My, my selling is a little bit easier, right? Hey, I've invented the world's first four way volleyball net. Oh shit. And your situation with doe, like I saw your retail deck the other night when we were looking at it, like you could literally talk about like how you guys are so popular and TikTok .

[00:07:21] Chris Meade: One of the most like up and coming, like aspiring internet brands as a, as a retail partner, you guys are historically like an older chain. You need people walking into the door and you need customers who are looking for products like this. We are sending millions of impressions or getting millions of impressions every single week or every single month.

[00:07:40] Chris Meade: And these are people in your store looking for our stuff and you just don't have it. So you're missing out on sales.

[00:07:45] Jason Wong: I liked that. Yeah. I liked that. I did talk to Lindsay who looked over my deck and that was her feedback is like, you have a good story. You need to tell it better. Yeah. And it was honestly so valuable because I think as [00:08:00] founders, we get lost in what we know about the brand and we expect everyone else to just know it was like, yeah, you should've known that we were on TikTok.

[00:08:07] Jason Wong: We were on all these. Yeah. Um, without realizing that, well, they're probably seeing thousands of the same things every single day. You're just one of the brand they're looking at. Moving back into the whole retail conversation. Um, I'm assuming in the beginning financing was a difficult thing. Um, I don't, I have never worked with like a massive retailer, like Walmart and Target.

[00:08:27] Jason Wong: They're placing probably seven figures in a PO and expecting you to front that money for a few months. Can you elaborate a little more on like how that works?

[00:08:35] Chris Meade: Yeah, it's tough, bro. Exactly what you just said. So we are self-funded. Still completely bootstrapped. Uh, we do have a nice line of credit with a very large bank now, which has been helpful.

[00:08:46] Chris Meade: Uh, but one piece of advice is when you start with retail, obviously you're willing to take whatever the hell you can get, but if you do have a chance, try to find retailers who have smaller net terms. And what I mean by that is try to find a net 30 partner [00:09:00] before you start working with a net 90 partner, because then you're gonna be out of cash for at least two months more.

[00:09:05] Chris Meade: If you're with a net 90 partner, it could really start to hurt your business. So for us, we kind of got lucky. I started with a net 30 partner called Scheels. . They started sending us tons of money. I had that cash and then I got a net 60 partner and then I got the net 90 partner. So it just kind of had beginners luck, uh, in hindsight.

[00:09:24] Chris Meade: Definitely got lucky on that front, but yeah, you just have to plan ahead. Things that we have done personally, to get the cash, like get the cash balance better is work with our manufacturer. Since we ordered from them so many times, we don't pay until the inventory lands at the, like at our warehouse, which is great, which buys us a lot of time.

[00:09:43] Chris Meade: Uh, and also a lot of the retailers now will allow you to take a haircut on your PO and I can get paid like 45 days earlier from some vendors and I'll just lose like 0.5%. So it's like not too much on the big PO if I need the cash. And then you can also take your BOS and get them [00:10:00] financed as well. Which we're starting today with Sam's

[00:10:02] Chris Meade: Club.

[00:10:03] Jason Wong: That makes total sense. And, um, I think for on the point of like smaller net terms, it's definitely easier to negotiate if they're a smaller retailer too. You can't go to Walmart with that term. Um, and so you, so I'm assuming you start with small guys and then use that to build your portfolio and roll up to the big guys and be like, Hey, we were selling out in all these stores.

[00:10:24] Jason Wong: How do you go about finding these stores? Cause I, when I think about like, beauty, I think of Ulta and Sephora and Target and now Kohl's, um, and maybe like Macy's, but I, it's hard for me to think of like smaller retailers I can still make a dent. Where the PO still makes sense. Cause I'm not talking about the people who are ordering 200 units just to stock up.

[00:10:46] Jason Wong: How do you go and find those retailers?

[00:10:49] Chris Meade: Yeah. And I just want to make this one other point real quick back to your last point. Cause I think it was really a good learning lesson is having an accountant on your team or having somebody on finance. Like if you don't, if you don't [00:11:00] have the salary to pay for an accountant, paying for somebody for five hours a week to do the books and go after the retailers, before we brought on an accounting team, I was hounding these retailers or I wouldn't find the time to.

[00:11:12] Chris Meade: And stuff that was supposed to be paid on November 1st wasn't getting paid until January 1st. And because that was just a lack of like time and commitment to track them down. Cause it's a full-time job. So that cash conversion cycle is going to be much better if you'd have somebody pounding the phone everyday, bugging you for that money. A tough lesson, but very important now. But back to your question, uh, what I do almost on a, a weekly basis is literally just going to Google.

[00:11:37] Chris Meade: And I type top backyard game retailers, top sporting goods retailers, top volleyball retailers. Now that we're getting into, soccer top soccer retailers break it down by state. Now that we're in Australia and United Kingdom and Canada I'll do it by country as well. And then from there, I'll take that, that lead list.

[00:11:55] Chris Meade: I'll probably be like 10 or 20 stores. I'll read like a bullshit listicle too. And I'll just [00:12:00] take that, throw it into LinkedIn, type in, I don't know let's just call it Urban Outfitters. That's not even a sports example, but Urban Outfitters buyer. And, uh, I'll type that into LinkedIn. I'll add every single buyer.

[00:12:12] Chris Meade: Typically, I won't put like a connection. Like I won't put a note. I'd like them just to say, Crossnet, Forbes 30 under 30 kind of looks legit enough. And then I'll slide in a few days later. And if there's normally when you're looking at, or at least when I'm looking, there's one guy who stands out, like that's the shark, that's the one I need.

[00:12:31] Chris Meade: I'll try to write him like a nice little short custom message saying, Hey, not sure if you're aware of Crossnet the world's first four-way volleyball game sold in 3000 stores. We'd be perfect for you. And then, you know, get a response back pretty decent amount of time.

[00:12:45] Jason Wong: Do you usually go for like the senior buyer or like junior buyer?

[00:12:49] Jason Wong: Because junior might need more leads and like seniors might like not look at them too much. Like, is there a strategy to like type of people you're going after?

[00:12:56] Chris Meade: To be honest, whoever's going to answer the message. Look at it a lot of the [00:13:00] time, like you said, in Walmart, for example, I went after the, I didn't go after the junior buyer, I sent the junior buyer message and the senior and the junior one responded.

[00:13:09] Chris Meade: What's he trying to do? Trying to get promoted. He actually just got promoted. So shout out to that guy, but yeah, so those guys are looking for the next big products and they're willing to take chances on you. That's how we got it to Dillard's actually. A super junior buyer got promoted to the sporting goods section.

[00:13:23] Chris Meade: They built one there and he had been following Crossnet on LinkedIn for two years. He was a huge fan. So yeah. Uh, that's kind of the approach there and also add marketers and add other people. Thinking back to my corporate life. I was spending two hours a day on LinkedIn, either trying to find a new job or just looking for shit to read

[00:13:41] Chris Meade: cause I was so bored at my desk. If I saw that my colleague likes something or liked an article that was a crosshead article. Now I'm exposed to that network and to that new product.

[00:13:52] Jason Wong: That makes total sense. It's actually such a hack. No one talks about that. Everyone kind of discounts LinkedIn now because they're like, it's all the spammy messages and [00:14:00] don't get me wrong.

[00:14:00] Jason Wong: There's still a lot of them, but I mean, it's still the professional network.

[00:14:04] Chris Meade: Yeah, it's great, dude. Uh, we would not be in almost any of our stores without it.

[00:14:09] Jason Wong: Absolutely.

[00:14:10] Jason Wong: And now that you're in a store, walk me through the promotional activities to get people who walk into the store. Uh, my understanding, and I could be totally wrong, is that if you're on a shelf and you sit there for too long and get penalized and they might not like you, they might not, they might ask you to ship it back.

[00:14:25] Jason Wong: Uh, how does it work when things get too long and how do you as a brand market to get people, to get more traffic into the stores?

[00:14:34] Chris Meade: Yeah, good question. So it depends on the term that you have, like the deal that you have with the stores, some of them will buy it, like ask you to buy it back. Um, you never want to agree to that.

[00:14:44] Chris Meade: That's like the last resort is having to agree to something like that. Um, but typically with each store we'll have a 3- 5% allowance. So what that means is let's call it a a hundred thousand dollar purchase order. We'll allocate anywhere from $3000 to $5,000 of that [00:15:00] back into the store to market.

[00:15:02] Chris Meade: Uh, and normally when you're a small company they'll just say, Hey, we use the $3-5K and we put you in a newsletter. But now what we're trying to do is like, actually work with the buyer, marketer to be strategic in Scheels, which is a, like a 34 store location in the Midwest, we're actually buying like wall paintings.

[00:15:20] Chris Meade: We're buying end caps this year, we're spending tens of thousands of dollars in the stores just to promote it. Uh, Dick's, we actually were doing a 42 store endcap with Dick's this summer showing off our pool version. So we're building custom end cap displays. We're doing all this custom stuff, but it's all just putting dollars back into the place. But the big kind of a conclusion we came to last year is that we're spending like 95% of our money on digital and paid, but 65% of our money coming in is from wholesale. So why are we not spending at the store where the customers are? So we're shifting a lot of that this year.

[00:15:57] Jason Wong: Absolutely. Um, no, that makes a lot of sense. When I [00:16:00] walk into a sports store, there's so many options, whatever catches my eye as the biggest poster or the end cap.

[00:16:07] Jason Wong: Um, and it makes sense for you to reinvest back into retail, just because that's where the money is, but the hesitation will be like, well, how do you make sure that these people come back to buy again? How do you convert them in to DTC or do you even want to do that?

[00:16:22] Chris Meade: Yeah, that's a good question. Uh, kind of a downfall of having two or three SKUs right?

[00:16:26] Chris Meade: It's like, it'd be great to get you to go back and purchase H2O, but I, what I really care about is you going out and having the best time ever. So the next time you're in Santa Monica playing at the beach, you are a billboard for my next hundred customers. So it was less about you coming back, which would be great, right?

[00:16:44] Chris Meade: If you have a great time, you've probably coming back regardless. Um, but it's more about you becoming a billboard for the next hundred customers and showcasing how the game's played correctly. So that's the packaging. That's instructions. That's our social, making sure that the rules are very clear, uh, cause we want you to have the best [00:17:00] time possible and be playing the correct way.

[00:17:02] Jason Wong: Honestly,

[00:17:03] Jason Wong: if one person can bring in four, five different customers, either from their friends who are playing it, or passersby on a bike, riding down a boardwalk and watching it, it's definitely a lot better than bringing them back for another purchase. Um, now I want to go over like the marketing aspects of it.

[00:17:19] Jason Wong: Um, of course there are like in store marketing that you just mentioned. But also you mentioned on the first time that you sold out overnight, it was because a Tik TOK went viral. Is that something that you've seen work really well for you consistently? Or what else do you guys do to drive more traffic?

[00:17:35] Chris Meade: Yeah, that's a good question.

[00:17:36] Chris Meade: So, I mean, I think we'd both be lying if we could be predictable, predictable about when viral stuff is going to happen. Right. It just kinda happens. Um, but the best way to make it happen, I've seen is just get more shots up. The more content you're putting out, the more content you're getting created is going to happen more than likely. Uh, so on TikTok, at least our strategy has been to post three times a day. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we're trying [00:18:00] to post. A good investment we've recently made was we brought in a freelance video editor who works about 20 to 30 hours a week. And he'll literally just take all our UGC in any of our photo shoots and video shoots.

[00:18:11] Chris Meade: And it will just be blading content up all day long, like that's his entire job. And then he's working with our head of performance as well to create different content. Because. Doe, it's pretty obvious, right? I actually, I don't know, probably I'd hope to say 90% of your customers are female, but, um, from, in the beginning I thought it was somebody just like myself, right?

[00:18:33] Chris Meade: Going out to the beach, 25 years old, active, diving, being competitive. We found through the analytics that moms and dads are the ones buying. And it's that mom and dad in the backyard in Nebraska, trying to get their kid off the phone, that's eight years old and teach them about I remember when I was playing tree forts and actually got fresh air.

[00:18:53] Chris Meade: So that that's kind of like who we're selling to. I want to sell to the young people like us, but in [00:19:00] reality, the moms and dads have the money. So we were starting to build content around that. And that just helps things like really move much

[00:19:06] Chris Meade: better. Okay.

[00:19:07] Jason Wong: It's a such a good point on founders making assumptions.

[00:19:11] Jason Wong: And this is true. So many of us fall into this fallacy of, we, we think we know who our customers are because of the assumption of this is a person who use our product, but there's also another argument would be like, who's the one buying the product. You know, you can market to the kids, but the parents are the one pulling out, you know, the amount of wallet.

[00:19:31] Jason Wong: Um, I, I think for, for makeup, it's a little bit more personal, but I, I can see that point being so valid to many, many other products. It make sense. And it's good that you found that out early on. And, you know, really hit them where, who on who's paying? Um, couple last question I do want to ask. I know you guys are expanding rapidly right now.

[00:19:52] Jason Wong: Um, congratulation on an H2O. I cannot wait to play this summer. Um, what, what is the expansion [00:20:00] of opportunities for Crossnet? Because in the beginning, everyone just thinks it's just gotta be a volleyball and then you're like, Hey, we have a pool version now. Like what what's next for you?

[00:20:09] Chris Meade: Yeah. So our goal is to own the four square market.

[00:20:11] Chris Meade: We want to bring foursquare, the childhood game to life. Uh, cause I can vividly remember playing four square when I was like eight years old Baldwin Middle School. Right. And dude, I have very fond memories of that when life was easier, when our hands weren't glued to our cell phones everyday like this, and I got carpal tunnel . It's just better times.

[00:20:31] Chris Meade: So yeah, our whole mission is whether you're playing for five minutes or 30 minutes, like go outside, be a kid again, get some fresh air. Uh, we're going to take Crossnet from volleyball down to soccer and also to Pickleball this year. And we're also going to be releasing our own a custom Foursquare straps as well, which will be portable for schools and just for families.

[00:20:51] Chris Meade: So yeah, we want to own the Foursquare market. And then kind of tap all our retailers, build out a whole wall at all the retail, and then we're going global with our [00:21:00] 3PLs in Australia and Europe and Canada.

[00:21:02] Jason Wong: That's so fascinating that that was something that I didn't think even was on the roadmap, but like you're taking over every backyard or even like recreational sports in your own invention, like not Foursquare, not like a new invention, but the fact that you're able to recreate this entire concept in a way.

[00:21:21] Chris Meade: It was never monetized. It was was with chalk

[00:21:23] Chris Meade: on the ground.

[00:21:24] Jason Wong: Right, right. It's funny. Cause you think of like, uh, I'm not sure how relevant it is, but squid games.

[00:21:29] Jason Wong: I is all like the games that people play in back in the day. And it really brought us back to those like fond childhood memories of the games that we played as a kid . And then you start thinking back, man, what else can we do? What else can we capitalize on? Right. Um, and you know, like I think capitalize is not the best way to put it, but bringing that back is so powerful for a lot of people who just lost touch with why we went out. The reason that we need to go out and get off our phones and be active.

[00:21:58] Chris Meade: Absolutely.

[00:21:59] Jason Wong: I mean, [00:22:00] you guys are definitely one of the brands I admire the most, which is why I picked you to be like the first few people on my show is because I, I just found your story so fascinating. Bootstrapping a business. It's not easy. I hope everyone knows that. Um, it is extremely painful. Um, your personal bank account has most likely dip below three digits at one point.

[00:22:20] Jason Wong: Um, when you move all the funds from like your personal account to your business just to pay a couple bills and then it's a three-digit Mart. I felt that.

[00:22:30] Chris Meade: Sad, bro.

[00:22:32] Jason Wong: But most people's like that gets like the funding just don't get the fire under their ass, like the three digits in your bank account. So I truly respect what you guys have been able to build.

[00:22:41] Jason Wong: Um, to wrap it up. I know you guys are launching super exciting things that we just covered, but let's talk about you personally. You launched an incredible newsletter. Um, that I should have the topic of today's talk from. Um, and I really wanted to see where else can we find your [00:23:00] newsletter?

[00:23:00] Chris Meade: Yeah, dude, I appreciate it.

[00:23:01] Chris Meade: Uh, so it's hosted on Beehive, which is this really cool app, uh, that I really love was we were talking about it this morning, so Beehive's great. I'm sure you'll help me with the URL of it, but yeah, I have a link tree: Chris Meade. It's a thing it's been really rewarding. Cause my whole story has been bootstrapped like Jason and I don't know too much about like your background and all that growing up.

[00:23:20] Chris Meade: For me, I grew up on a farm, right? There's no VC money. There's no angels. There's no people work at one place. There's one restaurant that sells chicken tenders where I'm from, and it takes 40 minutes to go to the gas station. So I had no access to e-commerce advice or people building businesses. It was me begging people.

[00:23:38] Chris Meade: Hey, you got 15 minutes of your time. You got 30 minutes free time. And now that's not too scalable. Right? I can't be talking to people all day long. Neither can you, but if I can take two hours of my week and give practical advice on what's working and what's not working for Crossnet and how we got here and I get a hundred responses back.

[00:23:54] Chris Meade: People being like, oh shit, this was so damn helpful. Thank you so much. And I'm, I'm doing good. [00:24:00] And each week it kind of just feels better that somebody is getting something good out of it and I'm not charging anybody for it. It feels good. Yeah. So it's my little social good back into the world.

[00:24:09] Jason Wong: Building in public is so powerful.

[00:24:11] Jason Wong: I don't think people understand that. And I've gotten like some pushbacks because I also build in public. Um, but my take from it is that the more you share, the more you get to learn, because otherwise you're stuck in this whole bubble of you're the greatest person in the world. You're the best operator.

[00:24:27] Jason Wong: And literally nothing you're doing is wrong. When in fact we make a lot of mistakes, we fuck up a lot. Um, and, and by building in public and, and talking about our experiences, we're able to get feedback from the community of like, Hey, you know, what have you heard about this thing that you can actually use to make UGC?

[00:24:43] Jason Wong: It's like, I put out a tweet the other day asking about who makes UGC. So I got thirty different responses.

[00:24:48] Chris Meade: It's crazy.

[00:24:48] Chris Meade: Whenever I'm stuck, whenever I'm stuck or need something, fire it off on LinkedIn or Twitter and I'll have a response in five minutes.

[00:24:55] Chris Meade: It's, it's

[00:24:55] Jason Wong: the greatest, like little hack. Yeah. Such an [00:25:00] edge. And, um, just to touch on like my past, because you brought it up.

[00:25:03] Jason Wong: I grew up in Oklahoma. Yeah. I walk in, I walked to school in the snow every day and I'm like, damn, I do not want to keep doing this. Um, and then I, and I moved to Canada, live with my mom and I was like a one bedroom. I slept in the storage room. And before that I slept in the garage. So growing up, I just never had a lot to begin with.

[00:25:24] Jason Wong: And it really inspired me to be like, I have the power to make the change that I want to see in a world. I'm not getting a fat inherence. I'm not getting any matter of fact, I, I'm not, I'm not gonna marry rich. I'm gonna have to do all that stuff that I want in my life. This idea of frankly, I have expensive tastes.

[00:25:41] Jason Wong: Don't get me. But I'm going to have to work my ass off for that. So I think that's what got me to where I am. It's it's truly is it's hard. Like, I, I didn't mean you can say on this, like e-commerce is hard. No, one's going to tell you it's easy. And anyone who does this trying to sell you a course or trying to like, get you to pay for the mentoring.

[00:25:59] Jason Wong: I [00:26:00] always tell them, even when I teach a class that I teach, um, on Shopify or on my own program, I never say it's easy. I said, it's gotta be hard, but I'll teach you how to do it so that you can at least avoid a lot of the mistakes I made. But I'm not gonna say that you can make, you could become a millionaire in seven days or 14 days, because all that's bullshipt.

[00:26:18] Jason Wong: All of that is just to sell you a dream. So, uh, I think from founder to founder, have a lot of respect from you, uh, for, for you. Sorry. Um, and really appreciate you giving your time to hop on the show with me.

[00:26:31] Jason Wong: You just heard an episode of the building blocks podcast. If you like what you heard subscribe below to keep hearing conversations that I have with brilliant marketers, founders, and innovators on how they built their best ideas.

[00:26:42] Jason Wong: Now, we want to learn how you can turn your best ideas and build something massive out of it. Visit my website bbclass.co or follow my Twitter @eggroli.

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