Ep713: David Perry – Bet on the Person, Not the Idea

Andrew Stotz 00:02
Hello, fellow risk-takers, and welcome to my worst investment ever. Stories of loss to keep you winning. In our community, we know that to win in investing, you must take risks, but to win big, you've got to reduce it. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. So to join me go to my worst investment ever.com and sign up for our free weekly Become a better investor newsletter where I share how to reduce risk and create grow and protect your wealth. Fellow risk takers, this is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz, from A Stotz Academy, and I'm here with featured guests David Perry. David, are you ready to join the mission?

David Perry 00:42
I'm ready. I'm liking this movie voice of yours. Very cool. You got the career right there.

Andrew Stotz 00:48
That's my voiceover career. And it comes from Jim Carrey. But I, you know, I always remember when I was young, okay, I was born in 65. And I used to live at in Wilmington, Delaware. And I lived on a little place called Ravenwood court, and at the end of the court was a friend of mine. And I used to go sleep over his house on Saturday nights. And he slept late. But I was always an early riser. But I couldn't get up in his house and like wander around. So I just was like, on the ground. We had, you know, sleeping bag on the ground. And he had a radio under his bed. That was like right there. And then I would turn on the radio, and then just listen to the DJ all morning long. And it's just like, the DJs of those times. Were just so amazing. I later moved to Cleveland, Ohio, we had WMS. And the guy that was on at midnight was called be a love bash. That was his name. And we just love this. So I love the voice.

David Perry 01:49
Yes, important. If you've ever listened to Howard Stern from his beginning to where he is today, his voice has changed so much. It's so much more deepened and resonant now, so it definitely works. Definitely.

Andrew Stotz 02:01
Yeah, well, and your voice comes across pretty loud and clear and good. Also, not only because of the microphones and stuff, but sounding good. Let me introduce you to the audience. So David was in the video game industry for over 30 years making hits like The Matrix, Aladdin, the Terminator, an Earthworm Jim, he sold his last company to Sony PlayStation, and the one before that to atari. He's now building a startup in E commerce called Keroh. Find it on the web at get keroh.com. That's Keroh with two Rs. David, tell us about the unique value you are bringing to this wonderful world.

David Perry 02:48
I think for me, the thing that I've learned is to enjoy your life and experiment with absolutely everything. So if you get an opportunity to try something, you should do it. If somebody says, you know, do you want to jump out of an airplane? You actually have to answer yes. And then go do it. And why is that important? Well, because what happens is when you start experiencing what everyone else is into, it means like you walk into a party happened to me yesterday, Fourth of July, I went into a party and this guy was at the barbecue and he starts talking about how he loves motorsports. And I'm like, Oh, that's interesting. And then he gets into well actually, I like go karting. And then I'm like well, I've raced it Brands Hatch go karting. And it's immediate rapport with an individual. He's like, we're like That's unbelievable. And so you know, the thing is go karting is just one you got to go scuba diving, you got to go waterskiing, you've got to fly helicopters, you've got to do all these different things. But what it does, it changes your life because as you travel through the world, you have immediate rapport with anyone that you sit beside, there's something they're into that generally you're into as well as you've done. The twist is that it stops you being the master at one thing, like you play golf all day, every day for your whole life. You have to play some golf, but then you got to go play some tennis and then you got to go play hockey or whatever else. But

Andrew Stotz 04:10
as you said, I've been to Thailand. Yes, exactly.

David Perry 04:13
Right. I set a jetski on fire in Thailand. I wrote it so aggressively. I literally left it on the beach and walked away. Because it was smoking. And so in reality, that's the point is, is each is in business report matters. And I've found that to be a thing. So as a forest traveling through the world, I find it so fun when somebody suggests something I haven't tried yet, so I can go do that too.

Andrew Stotz 04:41
Don't be a boring person go out, enjoy the world. In fact, you know, it's like when you're a baby. Your life is all about exploring. testing things, putting things in your mouth, you know, screaming and seeing what happens and wandering around on the floor and it's like society he very quickly crushes that out of most people. So you got to really fight and break free from that and go do so many different things. I mean, I came to Thailand, you know, when I was 26 and just said, Well, what's the worst that could happen? You know, it fails, and I gotta go back to America and get a job. Well, it didn't fail. So

David Perry 05:22
yeah, no, you got to explore the world. That's the thing a lot of people never get the chance to do. And somehow you have to find a way you have to get out and hit different countries, and see how people live everywhere. And you end up with all kinds of stories and experiences and all these different places. And when you meet someone from one of those countries, you again, have rapport with them, because you're able to tell funny stories about what you did in their country, or what you've experienced. It's just, it's really helped me, I can't tell you how much it's helped me. There's an example I give, I was once flying to New York, and the person sitting beside me, I thought, I'm gonna find out what this guy's into. And I turned to him and I said, you know, what do you do? And he said, I import or into the United States. And, and I'm like, Hmm, this one's a good one. I've never I know nothing about the or business, you know, importing like iron ore and things like that. And so he was playing. While he was sitting there, he was playing this tennis game on a little PlayStation handheld. And I said to him, Oh, I know the guys that made that game. And then he goes, Oh, actually, I funded this game. And so immediately, we got something right. And then off we go. And the result was, he said to me, Look, I'm gonna go and see you tonight at Madison Square Garden, would you like to join me? And so I'm then sitting in Madison Square Garden, watching YouTube from ridiculously expensive seeds. And thinking to myself, I'm glad I turned around and said hi to this guy. And that's really why this matters.

Andrew Stotz 06:54
I have a similar one where I, a friend of mine, and I decided in Bangkok that we would, we would learn how to dance. So we hired a young guy that came to my house. And we kind of open up the living room as a dance floor. And he and I were, you know, learning with this guy. And then one day, my friend who was learning to dance with me, left my house and he called me a couple of, you know, half an hour later, he says, Hey, next time we meet, you know, next Wednesday or whatever, do you mind if I bring Miss Universe with me? And I was like, What are you talking about? And he says he knew the lady who was Miss Universe who lived in Thailand at the time. And Natalie, I forgot her last name. But so I was like, dumbest question ever. And so a week later, I was dancing in my living room with Miss Universe and my friend, Andrew Biggs, in that case, and we were just having a blast. And I just thought, you know, if we hadn't have gone to this guy and said, Hey, we want to try something different. We want to learn how to dance. That would never have happened. So try new things. Yeah,

David Perry 07:57
I mean, I want to give a commencement speech at university. And in the speech, I talked about this, how can you ever predict that right? How can you it life just happens and you're in? It's how you deal with these random events that occur, and doors are gonna open? Are you ready to walk through those doors? And boy, boy, did the Dean hate my speech. He's like, it's not about luck. It's about education. What are you talking about? It's like, actually, luck has a lot to do with it. Like, were you in the room? Did you talk to the right person? It's amazing.

Andrew Stotz 08:32
Yeah, and it's in this new world, where people were governments basically locked up young people in rooms for a year or two. Universities had people online, and they couldn't intermingle. It's like, there's a lot of people listening to this podcast and all around the world that have built this life, that the very insulated life, for the reasons that they were told that that's what they should do. And that's what's good for them, because of this disease, or whatever. And now, they're kind of stuck in this and they don't know how to get out. So you know, this is like, a challenge or a wake up call to listeners out there and people you know, go out and start doing things because you just never know, where you're going to end up. Whether you know, you're going to end up at a YouTube com YouTube concert, or you're going to end up at, you know, dancing with Miss Universe. So,

David Perry 09:22
you know, there's a guy I used to go to the TED conference each year and there was a guy there. His name was Sir Ken Robinson. And he was sort of respected as being the number one speaker at TED,

Andrew Stotz 09:33
you know, guaranteed education. He used to talk about

David Perry 09:37
creativity in schools and stuff. And there was one time I bumped into him at a party and I talked to him and he was talking about his book, The element about how all of us are built for certain things like it our DNA literally is, is is pre programmed for you to fit perfectly with something It's a bit like there's a song out there that you probably love and could listen to on repeat and no problem. It just, it fits with you. Or there's a movie that just fits with you. And if you ever wonder why people get addicted to video games, it's because they found the video game that fits their DNA. But the thing is that everyone has their element. And a lot of people never discover it. And that's the saddest thing ever. And like they, they go through their life, they didn't try this, they didn't try that they didn't do this, they didn't go there. And they never find their element. And so that book was a really good challenge. And what was interesting is he said to me, you know, the book was really successful, and it changed his life. But now that everyone's asking for the sequel, he's passed away now, but he did make the sequel, which was, how to find your element, which is pretty important, too. But ultimately, that idea of finding your element I think, is really, really critical for people because it's a huge unlock. And if you find it, you become dangerous. Because you're willing to do that thing, you can't stop it, you become obsessed by it. And people would find it very hard to compete with you. Because, you know, you're built to do that thing.

Andrew Stotz 11:05
So the book is called Finding Your element, how to discover your talents and passions and transform your life, published in 2014, as a follow on to the element. And I'll have a link to that in the show notes. Because I think that that is really an interesting one. It's nobody's ever recommended that on the podcast, but also, I just think it's, it's our whole journey, you know, like, what is your element? So,

David Perry 11:28
go watch his speeches on, just go to the TED website and look for Sir Ken Robinson and watch his talks. He's incredible.

Andrew Stotz 11:36
Perfect. And just before we get into the big question, just give us a background on what you're doing now with, you know, with Carol, and kind of how you're helping people and who is suitable for, you know, using your services.

David Perry 11:50
But why would I ever leave the video game industry? Right? It's a huge business hundreds of billions of dollars? And the answer is because I was interested in E commerce, which is trillions of dollars. And so you assume everything's been solved. But what happens in E commerce is, the platforms that are out there, the Shopify and Bigcommerce, and WooCommerce is, are all designed to help you build a little island, they're like, literally Island builders, you can have your own store. And it doesn't matter how great your website is, or your products, the number one problem is get convincing the Internet to come and visit your store. It's a very, very hard thing to solve. And it's actually life or death for a lot of companies like can you actually accomplish that and keep us constant stream of people visiting your store? And so we were sort of looking at that and thinking, Is there any, you know, how does that work in retail, if I made a protein bar, and I got it into Whole Foods, I'd be so excited because now I'm getting their traffic. And so it's more of a push, you know, you take your product and you put it into Target, you put it into WalMart, if you got to into Costco as well, your whole team would be hugging because you're killing it. At that point, you're getting all of that traffic. So I thought it was who does that for you online, who takes your product and helps you get it into lots and lots of online retailers and get all of their traffic for free? And the answer was nobody. So we started building the company. And, it's been going extremely well. And it turns out, it's bi directional. So you can push your product into other people's traffic. But because you're partners, you can also take their products and put it into your traffic, effectively increasing your sales. So this started out with a bicycle company, we met a bicycle company that didn't sell helmets. And we said to them, Why don't you sell helmets? And they said, because we don't make helmets. And we said, but then they're gonna go to Amazon of Maya helmets is terrible. You need that element in your checkout, because it increases the amount of money you can spend bringing in new customers. And so that, of course, makes sense. But they then said, Well, we our favorite helmet company is a company called 1000 helmets. And so we wired the two companies together, so that the helmets appear in the bike store. But they don't have to actually buy any helmets. But because they're wired in, it turns out all of the colors and all of the sizes instantly become available in their store. And now when they sell the helmet, the helmet company ships it and what we didn't really think about at the time, but if that really cleans up the margin. If you think about it, if you had to buy wholesale helmets and try to guess the colors and sizes and store them in your warehouse that's wasting margin by freight and insurance and touching them and storing them and then returning them and having clearance sales for all the mistakes you made. That all goes away if they just do the shipping. And so ultimately, we've made it as efficient as possible. And this is you can imagine, it's really very interesting to brands, it's a very easy pitch to people. And

Andrew Stotz 14:45
I mean I guess Amazon's doing the same thing in that there when you put up a product on Amazon they're wrapping every other potential product around your little tiny. Yeah, and of course if they don't care whether you that the cost someone buys your product or whether they buy any of these others, because Amazon's ultimately getting, you know, pretty much the main benefit of that. Whereas in your case, because of the relationships and the sharing, then those guys are getting the benefit. And the sellers are getting the benefit more than in the Amazon type model. Would that be correct in saying it that way? Or, yeah, so

David Perry 15:23
our tagline is sell more together. And the idea is to get brands to actually partner like that there's a dark side on Amazon is they also build competitive products. So if they see that you're selling a lot of something, they're going to come after that market. The worst thing you can do on Amazon is sell a lot of product, because then you will end up competing with Amazon's internal products, they have lots and lots of private labels now, and they make lots of products themselves, across all the major categories, the toilet papers, and everything, White Sox, whatever it is, they have a company now to make that thing. So that's something we don't do. We don't make any products. We don't compete with anyone the network is we want the network to be as healthy as possible. And now we're building connections into other things. So Univision uses our technology. So you can now get your products live on television, with Univision, for example, or NBC Universal, is lots of different companies using our tech to get at brands in a really easy way. So if you're a, we just did one with a credit card company paceline, where you get rewarded for being fit. So you get points based upon how fit you are, and then they want products that they can exchange for those points. And because of our huge catalog of products, they can easily add that. So it's turned out, we're sort of in a way starting to build the inventory layer of the internet. And that's, I think, what we're going to ultimately

Andrew Stotz 16:49
and what, what would be the ideal types of products, is it is it products, is it services, is it digital, is it physical, what what types of products sell on here,

David Perry 17:01
currently physical products, so we're looking for, you know, direct to consumer physical products. However, we do have influencers like Paris Hilton site, Ellen DeGeneres, his site, they we power them as well. And so if you want to, if you want to partner with influencers, you can use our platform for that as well. So, you know, we think of an influencer as a brand. Honestly, that's what they are. And all influencers are realizing, one by one, they're realizing that followers are great, but customers are better. So, you know, by all means, keep getting your followers, but it's time to start growing a customer database. And the only way you can do that is to own your own store. And so then they go, Well, do I need to get a warehouse? No, you don't need a warehouse, you can use Cairo. And now you can have partnerships with lots and lots of brands that you like. But ultimately, you get to keep the retailer cut, and the retailer cut is usually 20 to 50%, it averages around 35, Amazon will pay three to 5% or an affiliate click, and they'll keep the customer. And so you can see how it's very disruptive. It's about five to 10 times what you would get on Amazon, and you keep all the customers. And so if you want to build your brand, for real, you have to do that. That's just not optional.

Andrew Stotz 18:13
And how do you prevent I mean, one of the sites that I used to use that I really liked originally was Udemy nuts for courses, and basically Udemy just lost all price discipline, and then all of a sudden, it was an absolute race for the bottom. And when you have a marketplace, you run that risk that you just end up and you've been in Thailand, and we have these wet markets where there's 14 Different people selling chicken, you know, raw chicken to take home to cook and all of a sudden, the profit margins gone. And it's hyper competitive. How do you handle them?

David Perry 18:49
Well, the way the brands actually collaborate, they work out what the splits and pricing are. So no one can just take their products and sell them super cheap. But it's all controlled. And in fact, if they even break the rules, we auto correct it. So they can't they can type in whatever they like, but it will be automatically fixed. Interesting, though, in Thailand. They have these markets where they also sell video games and I actually played some of my video I got I actually went to the markets and bought games that I was currently making that hadn't been released yet. So I was blown away. I couldn't believe it. Like they've made boxes and everything but the game wasn't even finished. And they had got an early sample from the press. So the press must have been selling the game demos into some manufacturers in Thailand. And they were making the game so it was so amazing. That you can imagine that's quite interesting being on the other side of the world and seeing a game you haven't even launched yet.

Andrew Stotz 19:49
They hustle, that's for sure. Well, that's a great intro to your business. And I think it's fascinating. So for all the listeners out there and the viewers make sure to check it out and now it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one goes into their worst investment thinking it will be. Tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to an intelligent story.

David Perry 20:11
Well, what happened was, I got interested in the idea that someday if you stream movies and news stream music, and books are now becoming streamed effectively on Audible, and they're digital, with Kindle, everything is coming from the cloud. Doesn't it make sense that someday video games will come from the cloud. And so that was that, to me just made sense. Some day, every game ever made, will be available on every device everywhere in the world instantly. And so if that's going to exist someday, let's start building it now. And so that's what we did is we started building that technology. And ultimately, it you know, it turned out initially, it seemed impossible to get it to feel good. So that you could, you know, it would be the same as having a console at home. But in reality, once you put enough smart people on a really hard problem, you find solutions, and we had some massive breakthroughs. And we ended up demonstrating, you can play a game from the cloud with the exact same feeling as a console sitting on the table. And that caused people's heads to pop off. And Samsung ended up wanting to work with us to power their video game strategy. And Sony ended up buying our company. And so if you can imagine now a whole bunch of your employees just made, you know, significant amounts of money. And one of my employees decided to leave and start his own company using the money that he just made from our exit to Sony. And as a CEO, the way it works is you're easily locked in, you have some lock up agreement for X years, and I was committed to working with PlayStation. So I was watching this person go and build his own company. And of course, he then reached out and said, Would you like to invest in my new company? And I was like, Huh, you know, let's, let's see what you're up to. And, and he had me come over to his office, and he demonstrated what he was working on. And he was working on virtual reality. And the company was called Oculus. And I sit down with him when I put on the VR headset, and I start getting all sweaty. And that's the sign of motion sickness is coming really fast. And so I start getting motion sick. And I don't know what to do. Because, you know, I love technology. I want VR to succeed more than anything. But in this demo, I'm moving all over the place. And the result is it made me nauseous. And so he's like, so what do you want to do you want to invest? And I was like, I need to think about this. And I went away. And I did some research. And I read some military papers that said that they've tried their hardest to stop that nausea that people get. And they said, there's no solution to it. It's biological. It's just if, if you have rapid moving images in virtual reality, you're going to, you're going to feel that. So I told him, I'm passing on the investment. And, and I would have that would have been just to be crystal clear that we've been a founder investment in Oculus. And, and at the time, because when he first said it, I was thinking, Well, I'm going to match whatever he puts in, because that would be that would be, you know, that would be the right way to do it. And, because I believe very strongly in the entrepreneur, I just didn't, I didn't, I was worried about the sickness thing. And so anyway, long story short, Oculus starts taking off. And, he made an announcement, it just melted my brain because I didn't see it coming, which was he said instead of trying to take the current video games and put them into VR, we're going to make new games for VR that are designed for this experience. And I had never thought of that, that, if you design the game, so there's not lots of motion, then the sickness is not a problem. And because I couldn't help thinking it was all going to be Call of Duty and everything in VR. Anyway, he then goes to the next level and starts hiring industry experts like John Carmack and Michael aimbridge. These were gods in the engineering world. If you're a programmer, you know, like a hardcore programmer, you know, those people and they are gods in the engineering world. And, you know, Oculus starts hiring that level of people. You got to remember that Mark Zuckerberg is an engineer from the old days. So you know, when he hears John Carmack and Michael laboris he's gonna be like they are jet eyes. And so, you know, VR is very hot all the rest of it and then boom, suddenly he comes in before Before they even really had to prove that VR was a thing. He just bought the company for billions of dollars. And so I would have made hundreds of millions of dollars in that investment, or doing nothing, just by saying they're running it. Didn't have to do anything. I just had to say yes. And I said no. And I, when I found out that they just been bought for billions of dollars, I pulled over on the freeway sobbing, like, what did I do? So that was, that was ridiculously unlucky, the way that that panned out, if I hadn't done the research, or if I hadn't done the demo, I would have hundreds of millions of dollars.

Andrew Stotz 25:39
How would you describe the lessons that you learn?

David Perry 25:43
It's tough, because, you know, I think the trick is to bet on the entrepreneur and to say, like, I really believe in this individual. And I think that's something that I've learned from this. And I would do that again, I would now bet on the person and not because the idea, what I learned in business is there's two kinds of people, there's the people who point at hurdles, and there's the people that jump hurdles. And the pointers are the ones that always have the reasons why there's this reason there's this problem is this thing, and they keep pointing at all the hurdles. And then there's the other ones that just ended up at the end of the track. And they had plenty of hurdles, but they jumped every single one and you didn't even hear about it, there was no point talking about it, they just deal with it. And that's, that's why you bet on the CEO, because you trust, you know, it's going to be a tough journey. But you know, they're gonna get there, because they'll find a way through all of that. And so, my takeaway, I think, was, when you really believe in somebody, just just, you know, just go ahead and support them.

Andrew Stotz 26:52
Yes, put the money down. Yep. Particularly because it wasn't like it was a deal breaker in your own life, the amount of money that you could have put into it. So it wasn't like, Okay, I'm going to mortgage the house to do this.

David Perry 27:05
Yes, no, but it was my friends invested. So you know, some I have a circle of people that I know, that all invested. And so that's, it was me trying to out, you know, overthink this, this this situation. So I don't know, this is how life is right. And that's why there is this randomness to how everything occurs to you. But that would be, you know, just thinking, I've made plenty of mistakes in my life. But that was just one where I'm like, you know, pretty

Andrew Stotz 27:38
Yes, sins of omission. And there's a couple of things I took away from it, I think the first thing is understanding frame of reference, because basically, we have a certain frame of reference and your frame of reference was ultimately, you know, hey, they're gonna take existing games, let's say and put them in this. And it's just all dizzying, and it's just not a match. Whereas the frame of reference was shifting, and someone that comes along 10 years from that point, wouldn't even think about what you were thinking about, about taking old style games and putting them in this, you know, this format, they're already creating things in the new format. So the first thing is to understand that we get stuck into frames of references. And sometimes we get beholden to those, and we can't think beyond them. And I think that's my first takeaway. The second one, I always say, when investing in a startup is, you know, first is trust, do I trust this guy, this man or this woman? And trust takes time? You know, you can't just say one meeting, and I really trust this guy. The second one, I always say is the idea. Is the idea. Amazing. And then the third is, can they execute? And then the fourth, I say, is capital? Do they have access to capital? Or am I end up being the only funder of this? And those are kind of the things but now you're challenging that by making me think, is the, you know, should I be looking at I don't know, the competence of the founder? And is it more important than the idea? Because normally what I say is, the idea is gotta really blow you away. Because, you know, if you can trust someone, and they can stick to it, they can come up with something, but maybe that's not such a great idea. What do you think about it? Should I make some adjustment to my framework?

David Perry 29:25
Yeah, no, I think you're dead on, there's an aspect to it, which is, if you trust them, and you believe in them, do others too. It can't just be you. It has to be others too. And if it's others, too, then they're ultimately able to surround themselves with really talented people. And if they're able to surround themselves with really talented people, they're gonna get stuff done. And they're going to the, you know, they're gonna get momentum. And so, I think, I think that's been the sort of in my career. Every time my career took a big leap Because usually I'd found some people, I call them 10 Xers, they're 10 normal people in a single individual, and those people become unlocked. Because, you know, if you can attract those people to work with you, ultimately, you can do pretty amazing things. And that's like with the cloud gaming was an example. We just had some unbelievable talent in the building, I mean, just one of them built Oculus VR, right. So there was really, really good people there. And, and so it's really, when you get great people, and then incredible things tend to happen. And so, you know, when you're looking at a CEO, say if there's someone that you think can attract talent, like really great people to work with them.

Andrew Stotz 30:41
Great point. So let's now imagine a young person who just yesterday rejected an investment idea. That was, that's going to be the next big thing, but they will kind of go walked away. And we're thinking about someone as they're approaching a similar situation. First of all, we want to tell that person, call your friend back now. But the person who's going to be experiencing this, based upon what you learned from this story, and what you continue to learn, what action would you recommend our listeners take to avoid suffering the same fate?

David Perry 31:12
Well, I think one thing you can do is to say to yourself, can you help? Is there anything that you believe that if there's something wrong or something missing, is there anything you can do to help? Can you see a way out of this, and if so, then, then maybe that would be the thing that unlocks you. And for me, that's actually what I think is most fun with investing is I very commonly, I had this friend who was a screenwriter, and he taught a screenwriting course. And he would stand on stage at conferences, and ask the room to pitch them their story ideas, and you'd have all these random people sort of Shouting, shouting up their story they're working on, and then he would pitch it back to them. And he would pitch it back to them, and you're sitting in the audience going, I like kids better. The audience heard the idea, but he just drops it right away, and then comes up with something. And I think that, to me, is one of the most fun things to do is to hear someone's idea and then brainstorm with them. And sometimes you'll find yourself selling the idea to yourself, so when you're, when you're, when you're actually brainstorming with them, you start to go, oh, there's all kinds of interesting potential here. And, and so

Andrew Stotz 32:24
and you got, you got nothing to lose as it kind of a third party, they're listening to what they're saying and throwing it around. But you're also exploring, you know,

David Perry 32:33
exactly. And it's helping you sort of get your own frame of reference and all the different opportunities that are out there. So you know, and it means you have to stay interested in a lot of things. But I tend to really follow as much as I can all the different things that are going on. So I understand AI. But I get to the point where I've actually done some coding, like some Python, you know, to actually experiment with it. So I can, I can actually fully understand what's going on. And I think that's important as well, like I explained at the very beginning of this conversation, that does not mean you get to spend all day, every day coding a certain thing, that doesn't work, you don't have time for that. But what you got to do is understand how things work. So you can think about how to use those different ideas and technologies and capabilities and everything else. So you kind of have to stay interested. And that helps when you're building companies or when you're helping companies are investing into companies, as long as you're interested in all the different pieces of the puzzle, because you might introduce them to something a concept and idea relationship that they haven't even heard of yet. And that's, that's really valuable.

Andrew Stotz 33:45
Brainstorm excellent advice. So what's the resource either of yours or any other resource that you recommend for our listeners?

David Perry 33:54
Well, I have this general rule that whatever you want to learn, there is somebody on planet Earth. That's amazing at it that is willing to teach you. And your job is to find that person and get on the plane or get in the car or do whatever you have to do to get in a room. Do you remember in the matrix when Neo needed to fly a helicopter and he said I need to fly a Bell Helicopter and then it's like he shatters and now we can fly a helicopter

Andrew Stotz 34:22
that was looking for the tapes and putting it in and yeah, he's

David Perry 34:25
like, Okay, I've got it. That's actually how the real world works. There's someone out there with that information that wants to download it into you, but you have to get in the room. And I'm at a point in my life where I think I can't imagine any other way of doing things because I don't have the time. I don't have 30 years to learn this thing. And so that's why I want to get into the room with that individual and have them just teach me and so I've got into photography as a hobby. I sat with some of the best photographers in the world. I wanted to learn woodworking, you know I flew out, I think was Ohio I went to I'm driving the truck to go to meet this guy, and learn how to make furniture it, whatever it is. And by the way, it changes your whole perspective. Like, I have walked past furniture my entire life, but when I finally said I'm going to learn woodworking and I went and started seeing with master craftsman, if I walked through a hotel lobby or something or someone's house, I'm now like, fully appreciating.

Andrew Stotz 35:28
You don't smoke joints?

David Perry 35:31
Yeah, you know, it's suddenly you're respecting how things are made cars in, you've actually taken the time to learn. So, you know, if it's Photoshop, if it's whatever, you have to learn it. And there's always somebody that will just do that dump and YouTube helps to of course, so there's no excuses. Not

Andrew Stotz 35:51
yeah, there's a lot of gatekeepers to like, I had a publisher, call me about one of my books and say, We want to publish it. But could you write 100 more words in it, or 100 more pages in it? And I said, I worked so hard to keep that book short? Yes. The whole purpose of what I was trying to do was to take out all the superfluous stuff they like, but yeah, but nobody's going to bind that.

David Perry 36:14
That's not true. I totally disagree. I think this world is becoming insanely impatient. And I call it the time to Aha, there's no harm coming. Do you want that to be 20 minutes from now or two minutes from now. And when people get the aha moment, it's like a thrill. This is partly what you experience in video games, there's is this thrill where you've suddenly unlocked something or discovered something. And the more intense that experience is in the period of time they spend with you, the more they're going to come back? And so it might, it might sound like it's like being shorter is bad. But once they've experienced that even one time, they won't be able to go back. Agree,

Andrew Stotz 36:51
Agree? Well, last question, what's your number one goal for the next 12 months?

David Perry 36:57
Next 12 months is to grow this company, and to get it to a point where it's crystal clear what we are and why we're doing it. So it's, it's a, it's a, it's something that I think can fundamentally change ecommerce for a lot of people. And so if we can build, we think of it as building the core. And so it's obvious, you know, yes, the bike company in the helmet company to work can work together. But what happens when you really build that core. And when we add AI to that core, I think we can fundamentally change ecommerce for a lot of people. And this is the time when they want it in this economy. You know, they'd like extra sales. So they'd like more attention. So I feel like we're in the right place at the right time. So this year is going to be responding to that opportunity.

Andrew Stotz 37:45
Exciting, well, listeners, there you have it another story of loss to keep you winning. Remember, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. As we conclude, David, I want to thank you again for joining our mission. And on behalf of a Stotz Academy, I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

David Perry 38:09
Actually, one thing I've just been thinking about recently to someone Someone was saying to me, you know, they were asking about when you're trying to launch a company or build something, what should you do? And a piece of advice I have is think of a question that 100% of people will say yes to that, and then go after that. So I'll give you an example is would you like to know which influencers buy your products? You'll find 100% of brands will answer yes to that. And that's, that's interesting. So really, what's the question that gets 100%? Yes. Because that's really the true north for you need to go.

Andrew Stotz 38:48
I think that's really valuable advice. And I don't normally interject at this point, but I just feel like that is super valuable. And I created a new product called profit bootcamp. I help midsize family businesses double their profits in 12 months.

David Perry 39:08
Yeah, exactly.

Andrew Stotz 39:09
If you don't say I'm signing up right now, you're gonna say Andrew, you can't do that. And then we've got a conversation.

David Perry 39:16
Oh, it's true. If they believe it, then why wouldn't you do that?

Andrew Stotz 39:20
Exactly. So wow, that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our well fellow risk takers. Let's celebrate that. Today. We added one more person to our mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz saying. I'll see you on the upside.