Chris Chapman

In my career at Capital Analytics, I am over the Invest: Charlotte project, which is an annual business intelligence guide tailored to the local, national, and international investor to promote Charlotte as the place to do business. Through this role, I have learned a significant amount about leadership & management.

Outside of my career, I am the Founder & Host of the Next Level Minds podcast. Each episode, I am blessed to sit down with a qualified guest, entrepreneur, content creator, or mover and shaker in their industry and walk through their story of how they got from point A to point B in their lives. Topics include but are not limited to personal development, business, entrepreneurship, sales, marketing, technology, innovation, & many more! My main goal is to impact over 1,000,000 people by helping them reach the next level!

https://linktr.ee/JRBolton

Transcript

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Welcome to the Josh Bolton show where we dive interesting and inspiring conversations. And now your host, Josh Bolton. Welcome, everybody. Today we have Chris Chapman. We just went over so much cool stuff up before I hit the record button. But you know what? We're going to talk about his podcasts and next level mind his app he's working on for travel, which is gonna be great with the post COVID situation. And yeah, it just is up and coming story. Here he is, Chris. Yeah. How's it going? Man, thank you so much for having me on the show. I know you're talking offline a bit. I know there's a lot that you and I can unpack about a significant amount of things. So I'm excited. Yes, it's gonna be very interesting. So Chris, I didn't even get to ask this. Tell me about your yourself and what you do for work. Yeah, so a couple three, three items, I kind of do. So one, I got the eight to five. And what I what I do is I build annual economic reports for major cities. So I cover our Atlanta and Charlotte region. Basically, we interview about 300 different CEOs on why they should do business in those cities. And we also will distribute it out to different fortune 500, fortune 1000, companies, chambers, business associations, and with all that data, because about 200 interviews and one about 200 page report. And we'll distribute that out to try to help bring business to the to the Charlotte and Atlanta region. So kind of the day job is building relationships with CEOs across 10 to 12 different industries partnerships with chambers Business Association, so a lot of kind of like face to face contact at least like the most you can right now virtually. And then I have the the podcast next level minds that I've been doing for about two years speaking with different founders, executives, CEOs, really on how they got their business from point A to point B overcame failures along the way. And then the third item I'm doing is working on the visit travel app, which hopefully it'll be launching in the next month or two, which we're super excited about it. It basically eliminates all random, inaccurate reviews, related to travel and only gives you trustworthy travel information from people you know, about the places you want to go. And you know, if you look up Yelp, there's about 188 million reviews on there. And the main thing is, you know, do you actually know those people that are making those reviews? Can you relate to them? Do you have the same opinions? Do you have the same background, we're eliminating all of that, and only going to give you travel related content from people, you follow your network, your friends, your family, your colleagues, and you can actually trust that that traveled data significantly more than the random reviews that are out there? So actually, let's get right into it. The biggest one is, I was thinking because you said people you fall is this gonna be like neighborhood, the app where like everyone in your neighborhood as downloads app to see it? if no one's in the app? No one's gonna see anything? Yeah, that's a great question. So what we're doing on the kind of the API side of things is we're integrating it into, you know, a Facebook login. So when you can log in through Facebook, and it'll actually like ping all of your friends and say, you know, I just downloaded the visit travel app. And it'll like, obviously, push your Facebook friends to download it as well. What we're focusing on, which actually is like what Instagram kind of focused on as well, when they first started his Instagram, when they first started heavily focused on just photographers. So they had like, an extremely niche group that use their application. And now of course, everyone is on Instagram. I mean, my grandmother has an Instagram, she's like, 90 years old. Does she know how to use it? No, but she has one just to see what's going on. So for us, we're focusing on that kind of initial niche market of people who who just love to travel, you know, who got multiple flags in their bio, who travel all over, maybe go to London, one day, Germany one day, hopped around all these different things. And then what we're going to do is focus on that extremely, like hardcore, if you will, travel market, and then kind of disperse into other sectors as well, kind of once we get that initial niche down. That's interesting. So the how you, how do you plan on collecting data, especially with these new third party cookie? anti stuff? Yeah. So I mean, when you sign up for any app, like it, it gives you that, you know, whole, like, click here for terms and conditions. And so you know, we're not going to, like sell any of the data or anything. Also, a lot of it's encrypted. So, you know, our developer can see the the amount of testers we have, which honestly, is just a few because we're, we're working on a few things on the front end of the app before we send it out to a few 100 beta testers, but a lot of that is encrypted. I mean, he he can't see like logins. He can't see, like travel destinations that people haven't made public yet. So there is like some encryption that you can do to do that. But yeah, we're not gonna like be So in data or anything, similar to like any type of social profile, you can set up your profile to be public or private. So if you just want to have private and maybe have a couple 100, people follow you to see where you've been health plan trips on the app, things like that, then you can set it private. But if you want to make more of a public profile, like for instance, my Instagrams public, everyone can see my stories, my post everything, it's completely up to the user and what they want to do with that. Okay, so then I'm curious, because that, that is a very good, unique thing, are you thinking of taking it like the Instagram route free or your Navy, like a simple five bucks a month kind of thing? Yeah, so two models with that, one, we're gonna have a freemium model. So first, when we get started, you know, it's gonna be completely free, obviously, like, the main goal is just having mass market and gaining market share in this because, you know, like, 100,000 users sounds like a lot for an app. But like, at the end of the day, compared to some other things out there, it's really not a lot of users. So we want to get the MA use monthly active users up to consistently that six figure range, because obviously, that's going to show consumers and join actually using our app. And then what we are going to launch is more of like a premium model where you can get like travel deals, you can kind of like customize your map a bit, we're still kind of working out the kinks of that, but that's going to be one revenue model. And then the second revenue model is, is clicks. So every time a user like books, a car on the app, books, or restaurant books, or hotel books, a flight using our app, because we're actually driving that traffic to American Airlines, Hilton, whatever restaurant, you want to say, we're gonna actually make money each time someone like books, a particular like flight, hotel, restaurant, things like that, which, you know, if we take, you know, 1% of that total cost of that booking times like 100, me know, let's say 10,000 people book, something a month, obviously, that's an extremely small, but let's say 10,000 people book something a month times that 1% of that trip, I mean, there's a lot of significant of money that can be made through that. I mean, you have apps like, you know, booking.com, they make a lot of their money through that model. And there's a few others out there as well. So, but no one's really like combined the review system, with the booking system with the social system, kind of all in one, it's either been like, you have Instagram, or you have Yelp, or you have like booking.com, no one's really taking the time to kind of combine all three platforms into one. It's interesting, I'm just trying to think of like you said, the logistics, it's like, let's see the freemium vs. It's free. But are you going to let's say, I'm wanting to go visit New York. So would I kind of like Google Maps, I'd only see certain restaurants because they paid to be on the map kind of thing. Yeah, so what you would do is you set up your profile, you know, profile, picture name, bio, where you're from where you live. And then instead of having a feed of photos, you'd have a big interactive map of the world. So everywhere you've been is in green, and then everywhere you would like to go is an orange. And then what you're able to do is click on the newsfeed on our app, scroll and see everything related to travel. But if you want to get hyper focused, and to New York, for example, you could click New York. And then you could scroll and see all of the people you follow on the app, like where they've gone, places they've gone out to eat, or you could also switch over and just hit public. So you can do followers, and you can see just followers of the restaurants. But then you can do public and similar to like Yelp, you can just see all the restaurants and everything as well. So you kind of have like two different models. You're like, man, I only want to see restaurants that people I follow to have been to only want to read reviews from people that like, I trust that I know. But you know what, maybe Josh, for example, hasn't been to these couple restaurants that I want to see. I'm going to go public and just build a see all of them at once. Okay, okay, that makes more sense. But oh, yeah, the the thing that just clicked in my mind is okay, you're saying all this data in the app and your friends, but is it gonna be like Instagram, where I'm gonna have the visit app on my phone? So when I do visit that destination alternate kind of thing? or wherever I go? I can't randomly punch in stuff. Yeah, so sorry. repeat that question again, was like, Is it gonna be like the Snapchat, like Snapchat maps where you, it will show you where you are kind of like a heat map. But then, let's say I just today I download the app, hypothetically. But I've been told these places like cool places, do I have to manually punch it in or because the app wasn't there? It just account kind of thing? Yeah. So it'll pull all that data. When you sign up. You can either sign up through Facebook or Instagram. You know, they're obviously owned by the same company. Yeah, and it'll First off, it'll pull all of Your date, just so you posted a photo in like California, Colorado throughout the years, it'll pull all that data about places you've been and just automatically update your map. But also, when you create a profile, it's super easy, because when you create a profile, you just have a name, you know, set up your bio and everything. And then the next screen after that is a map of the world. And it just basically says, click everywhere you've been, and it's like, really easy to do that, because we just build out the UI for that. And so you can just very quickly click all the states click all the cities, things like that, you know, I added, like, 100 locations. The other day, as I was testing out, it took me less than, like, two minutes. And then the next screen is Okay, thanks for putting where you where you've been? Now put, where do you want to go? And then that's when you highlighted orange to all the places you want to go. And then your whole map is set up. And then when you actually like go to that location. So I want to go to Texas, like never been to Texas, I can click on Texas say that I visited there, and then I'm just automatically changed that orange. And then I can obviously like, see all the things that I've done at that location. That's interesting. That is very, it's a very simple but complex formula at the same time. Yeah, no, no, I mean, it's, it's taken us a while to like get to this point. Because at first we had this like, grandiose idea that it was going to be even more complex. And then we hopped on a few calls with just other app, entrepreneurs who have started apps and like, Listen, guys, like you guys are trying to boil the ocean when at first you need to boil a pot of water. So you know, I got some really great advice, whether you're like developing something or just launching, you know, a T shirt company, like, Don't try to boil the ocean at first focus on that pot of water, getting that boiling, and then move on to the bigger pot, bigger pot, and then bam, you're boiling the ocean, like don't try to do everything at once focus on that kind of niche things and then kind of compound from there. Yeah, absolutely. That's like any business. Like t shirts, that's the most easiest route relate to the like, I know this one guy, he was trying to start a business. He did everything he is expecting to be the next Amazon I'm like, well, your first problem is you're in the field and you have a delegated anyone. So you're not gonna be Amazon anytime soon. Yeah, and the thing is, that's like, you know, you look at Bezos, and he literally was just selling the, you know, the books. And like it kind of naturally compound into something else. So I like kind of focus on that one market at once. And then kind of have the rest, follow suit. Don't try to launch like five different products at once you kind of just need to focus on one thing at a time. So you were mentioning earlier about the using Facebook and Instagram integration? Would you include like almost a gamification where so many people sign up? They get whatever free amount of credits kind of thing? Yeah, so what we're gonna do is we're working on right now this is kind of my my job as fellow co founder of building partnerships with like, like Marriott, American Airlines Delta, a lot of these large scale travel brands, and setting it up where, where every time someone makes a review on the app or somebody, you know, foot post, a photo, a video or a review, you know, they can get X amount of travel points that they can ultimately use for like airlines, hotels, things like that. So for example, I have a venture capital travel, travel card. And you know, every time I go spend a couple bucks, I get travel points. So we're going to set up a similar type format here where it's going to encourage a lot of users to, obviously use the app because every time they make a review, they'll get a travel point, we still have like, the logistics of a photo equals this mini video equals this mini review, because there's many but that is something we're going to do to encourage a lot of people to like, obviously continue to use the app because I think the biggest problem with apps that I've seen is, like how many times have you downloaded an app on your phone, use it like a couple times, and then it's just sitting there. So we're obviously constantly thinking of ways to like continue to engage our users. Because the worst thing you want to do is like, go to you know, a group of investors or even a partner and be like, Hey, listen, I have 50,000 users, and then they started digging a little bit, they're like, Well, you know, we can only see that, like 6000 of them are monthly active users, which actually is like the main number that you should be looking at at the end of the day. So you need to like constantly be thinking of ways to engage those users. That's interesting. So hypothetically, you're saying people could earn money by reviewing and posting on your your app hypothetically. Yeah. So they would earn the travel points, which obviously is going to translate to them being able to use it on those different like travel destinations. Or sorry, travel brands, like I mentioned, the Hilton's the Marriott's things around that nature. It's much later on down the road but um What's your policy for content if you're going to integrate videos and photos? Because that can get real nasty real quick? Yeah, I mean, that's like a very forward thinking question. I think it's just kind of having the compliance in place. That obviously we would hire at that point, once we start to like, actually have people doing videos to kind of like, monitor what's going on, because the last thing you want to do is just be posting, like inappropriate content and kind of get branded in that fashion there. Yeah, that's what I was thinking like, okay. It's kind of like, it's the Wild West, they're just saying, oh, they're not gonna monitor us, we can post whatever the hell we want. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, that's like a good question, because that is something we've thought about, but it's almost like, you know, even like with LinkedIn, you were talking about that earlier. Before we got started, like, Is there somebody with LinkedIn every time you post a video that's like monitoring it? Is it like a team? Or like, you know, is it a software kind of algorithm? So, you know, I don't know if you know, that. I really don't know how they monitor that. But I mean, I've never gotten like a video flagged or anything like that. I'm just wondering if it's like some type of algorithm or if it's literally like a team of people looking at like, the front end of the app and being like, Nah, now, let's like x, this one out, you know, for LinkedIn, specifically being branded as business, I don't think I mean, people are people, they're gonna do crazy stuff. But I think most of its algorithm based if obviously, like, if you have something generically violent, and an algorithm could pick it up, I think that's more it than they have a hearing review and be like, oh, yep, that's problem. But Oh, yeah. Like you said, I've not really heard of them taking things down. But it's where CEOs go to talk to each other. The worst they're going to do is like, show their dog being silly kind of thing. Yeah. Now every I haven't really seen much. I've seen a handful of things that shouldn't be on Instagram. Oh, my God. Yeah. So I don't know how they look at it. But I know algorithm. Yeah, I think that algorithms gotten stronger. Because I mean, they're taking off things left and right. across multiple different like, industries, sectors, people. So I think that's something like you kind of have to keep at the forefront of, especially if you have like a social component, because people are crazy. They'll just post whatever the heck they want sometimes, just to see if they get attention to Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay, that's good to know, at least you're thinking about it, because it's like, that's one of those once you get out in the trenches, that's gonna be a hot mess. Oh, yeah. No, we don't want that at all. Um, so then tell me a little more about your podcast? What you do with that? Yeah, so started it, bout two and a half years ago, and two reasons why. So, one, you know, I always I grew up really like loving success stories. So you know, I came from just a normal middle class family, but I'd always like meet my friends, parents that, you know, you could obviously tell that they had stronger wealth. And I'd be like, you know, like, what do you do for work? Or like, Do you own a business? Like, even at like, 1213 years old, I was always kind of diving into those questions. So I've always kind of had the Curiosity behind the success that people have reached. And then, you know, when I graduated college in 2018, like I had always loved to impact people. Like I was involved in a lot of different like, mission organizations, nonprofits, even in college and stuff. So I was like, man, how can I combine the passion for wanting to impact people, and the passion for hearing these type of stories. And as a man, the podcast is like the perfect vehicle for that. So it was like a great launch. I mean, I did about eight episodes, recorded, saved them and then launched about five at once, and then slowly, like dispersed them from then. And it's been a thing that's, like, naturally, like progressed on itself. Like the first couple episodes, like I could is a bit awkward as the host, just because it was like, you know, fifth time doing it. But you know, now that we've done like, we're have 70 episodes live, we recorded about 80. So now it's just so you know, it's a lot easier, like you get better at things as you continue to do them over and over and over again, obviously. Yeah. So yeah, episodes every other week, we do every other Monday. And then the third episode of the month is called motivation Monday. And I'll talk personally for like 15 minutes about, you know, a topic that I think people should hear about. So the other day, I did one on the importance of mental and physical health. I've done once on like, risk taking on one's own, like how to monitor your finances just popular topics, about 1520 minutes, and then I dispersed that out obviously to the listeners every every third Monday of the month. Okay, yeah, those are good topics in general, they're kind of evergreen because he sad to say, people don't really know how to handle their own money. Oh my god, it's crazy. I mean, I you know, that's something I've always been invested in. of like creating budgets, obviously, like spending less than you make, and I had I made a budget template on Excel, and literally just posted like an Instagram story A while back and was like, Hey, you know, anyone want a budget template that can save you money and then like, I like so. People DM me and be like, yo, can you email this to me? I'm like, man, like, this is crazy the amount of people that like want, which is good, like you need that information. But it's also like some scary statistics out there. And I think it's like 70% of Americans have less than a couple $1,000 in their savings account. 100 Yeah, it's like, Man, that's, that's not good. You know, and it's, I think it's gonna get worse and worse. It's just you obviously need like, personal finances is super important. It really is. And this, the sad thing is like a joke with one of my client, clients. Guess. And he, he's a finance guy. I'm like, it's one of those sad things to sink taught in high school kind of thing. And like, you, I had to learn this on my own kind of thing. And you go, Yeah, no, no, I was just saying that. I think that should be taught in high school. Like, I think, you know, I don't use anything that I was taught in high school at all. I took two, I took two business classes, because I went to a really big high school that like my graduate classes, around 1000. So it was kind of like a small college in a way. So you could actually like, not declare major, but you could be like, Hey, I'm interested in like computer science, I'm interested in engineering, I'm interested in business. And you could actually take like, couple business classes, it wouldn't be college credit or anything, but like, I took accounting, I took business one on one, I like those two or three classes I learned the most in versus like chemistry or anything like that. So I think that should be a curriculum that's like, taught in our high schools. Like I know, there's a lot of people I've talked to that are like, trying to like do that there's people around Charlotte that I know that actually go to some of the the, you know, more Title One schools where the income gap is, you know, the super low income schools that that go do that. But I think it needs to be spread more nationally, because it's, it seems so easy on the surface, but like, not a lot of people. As you know, from that stat you mentioned, most people don't know how to manage their money. They don't. And it's the craziest thing, like one of my co workers that were at work. He was somehow he hypothetically, let's say he's making 150 a day. And I don't I don't know, he's been with the company for so long. He's making dumb money kind of thing. But he would spend $100 a day in food for everyone. And I'm like, um, I highly recommend you don't do that. And they explained to him why. Because he wanted to buy a car kind of thing. I'm like, year, that 100 bucks you doing? Like, instead of buying everyone a pizza and soda kind of thing, maybe you just buy like your one good buddy, that works for you kind of thing. So instead of 100, it's like 25 bucks. I think that's more doable. But I'm like, if you want to card, you might not even want to buy your buddy food kind of thing. And whatever you make you put towards your savings. But whatever you want to do bank, cash in the box guy thing like cash in the box, really dumb idea, but to each their own, if it works for you. And he told me, he essentially he would just buy himself meals, and he was able to buy a brand new $20,000 car with a $10,000 payment. He's awesome. Then he's like, dude, I'd never even knew this is just simple advice. Like, this is one of those. We all intrinsically kind of know it. But no one wants to actually do it kind of thing. Yeah, no, I totally agree. And it's crazy. Like how much saving how much money you can save by, you know, taking their lunch to work or, or just cook. I mean, it's crazy. And I think a big point too, with that car story. I think people just like the biggest thing is you need to start reverse engineering. So, you know, car, for example, you need to be like, Alright, how much do I want to put down for this car? or How much do I want to pay for this car? I say it's$12,000, then you need to say, Alright, I want to make this and a year. So I need to say $1,000 a month? How much is that per week? How much is that per day, like get really hyper focus with it. And then it's constant. Like if you have that good budget set up, you can kind of like, check in on yourself every two months back, am I on track to reach that 12,000 savings goal by the end of the year, if especially if you have a good budget setup, and if you're like month six, and you're like man, I'm a little off. And then you can look at say, Okay, I can take, I can spend less amount in groceries, I can spend a little bit less on like going out. And then you can kind of like focus your budget re kind of like align it to get to that savings goal. And I do that all the time. Like I'm constantly looking at my budget on Excel, and being like, how much should I spend? You know, going out the last month how much should I spend on groceries? How much should I spend on just like random things like a haircut? Or like a new pack a notebook paper? Like I'm literally like, Is there anything I could move around? And it's super important to do that because you need every dollar is like a soldier. You need to know where it's going that day today and I've heard like multiple people say that and I stick with that advice a lot. It really is. Did you read the richest man in Babylon? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Grant Cardone says that a lot and then I'm reading for the second time, Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki right now, which is a super good book. So I'm on like the last chapter but I try to Read, I try to reread like the kind of fundamental books like thinking grow rich or Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Rich Man of Babylon Rich Dad, Poor Dad, like those four or five books every single year just to kind of continue to build on the foundation. Yeah, yeah, you always want to go back to the basics if you you kind of thing, the extra fancy stuffs nice, but it's not kind of like your app. It's nice. When you eventually can get there sustainably. Yeah, no, I totally agree. So I'm curious for you, because it sounds like you actually don't like dread your job, your eight to five? Are you if you have the opportunity with the app? Let's say, magically, two years go by and you're, you're making plenty of money, you could quit your current job, would you? Or is it one of those you actually like your job where you're at to MIT, I would definitely do that. I've definitely quit because like, I think the eight to five is good to kind of get you to the next level, you know, if you want to stay in the eight to five for us your life, but a 401k you know, retire at 60? Like, that's awesome. I know plenty of people who've done that. But something that I've been realizing is like the importance of of your time and your freedom. So I think when you're owning your own business, yes, you're probably going to work more specially if you get outside capital, because these investors from say, Hey, what are you doing with this money I gave you, it's not going to be micromanaged. But it's going to be a lot of work to make sure you can obviously give them their their their capital back. But at the end of the day, like you can have significantly more ownership because it's your thing. You know, like I make money, I make a base salary and commission, I can control really how much I'm making commission from sales and stuff. But at the end of the day, it's like, I can't control the hours I work, I can't control, you know, they could put a cap on commission and be like, hey, once you make this, this amount, like you can't make any more, you know, there's so many things that are outside of your control with the eight to five, which I don't like. And worse is with your own business, you're in control even more and like something also realized during during COVID. In 20, you know, early 2020 is like the eight to five not as safe as people may think, you know, it's getting left off, let let let go like no other you dice, Sony my friends got furloughed, a lot of my friends, like had a reduction in salary. And it's like, man, like, it's not as safe as you think. And you're really, really not in control versus like, if you're owning your own business, and you're experiencing something like COVID, obviously, you're gonna have to take a massive kind of shift to make sure your business still runs depending on the industry. But at the end today, like you're in control of your business, and what happens so and I like that control factor a lot. And I like kind of the freedom factor, you know, I have a good friend of mine, his dad owns an insurance business. And you know, he works more than the average eight to five person. But you know, he can just go on a week or two long vacation, not have to, like ask off, he may have to like work harder leading up to the vacation. But it's like having that freedom is what really like to me matters at the end of the day. I agree. Yeah. That's was one of those guests that you asked me like, so you're stealing all this knowledge, you're talking to business people, what do you want to do with it? And I'm like, Well, I want I guess I'm like, I want to own a business to be free. And I'm like, No, you're not free when you own a business, just so you know. I'm like, Okay, so then what would you go on there? Like, you want to have the ability if you want to step away for two weeks, like you said, with the one guy, you can, but you also have to realize, for the two weeks before that, you're gonna be freaking balls to the wall, like you're running off caffeine. So then the two weeks you can rest kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. And it's man, there's just so many like positives, I think, in my opinion about just doing your own thing. The biggest one, and I still have to read the book is the amount of tax advantages you can get as a business owner. It's insane. Boy in his sin, but it's impressive. Yeah, man, there's Yeah, there's so many things you could do. I mean, you can I had a buddy who owns his own business, and he made on paper, almost like half a million, but obviously with like, writing business expense of all business expenses off, he like made less than 100 according to taxes and everything, I'm like, That's crazy. You know, if I, if I make like half a million at an age of five, I'm going to be taxed like 50%. So even more, like depending on where you're live and all that, and I'm like, you know, he's over here on paper making like, lower, you know, close to 100. But he made almost half a million but getting taxed. So it's like so many cool things you can do with the tax advantages. And then my advice there is like, I think you should read about it enough to know about, like, what you can do with write offs and stuff, but that's something you should like definitely outsource to a CPA because they're the ones who know who know that way better. But I think you do need to know enough. Yes. Yeah. No, yeah. Is that good book? Oh, it's really good. It's all the federal stuff. It's like one of them's like anything marketing, depending on it. Minimum 50% off whatever you spend, depending on the marketing 100% whatever you spend, you get to write off for. Hmm, I don't like. So it's like ads, if let's say I wanted to run an ad for your show it because you had me on. That's 100% right off. So let's say I put 1000 bucks down. That's 1000 bucks. I don't even have to worry about the government wanting now, huh? And you can just dump it back into that girl and your business. Exactly. It's crazy. But like I said, boring is sin. It's one of those normal people would never want to read that. Yeah, I agree. But, um, that's interesting. So then, for your, your app, visit? Have you already formed a company? Or is it still just no LLC? Just a project on the side? Yeah, so we're an LLC right now. But what we're gonna do is actually, in order to acquire outside capital, you have to be a C Corp. So before, right, before we do outside capital, we're gonna switch over to a C Corp. Because when you get outside funding, when you say, when you say, you know, $100,000 or 10% equity, it's not just like on paper, hey, here's 10% equity, what that equity is, is actually a distribution of shares that you're giving the investor. And you can only distribute shares to outside capital with a C Corp. So we have not done that yet. Because once you are a C Corp, like, you're like paying some more fees, you're actually like having to like run your taxes more. So, you know, I see double tax if you do dividends. Exactly, exactly. So in our CPA, we I have one for my personal income. And she was like a switch to a C Corp like the last minute because you're once you do that, like you have to actually start ramping things up. So yeah, we are going to go to a C Corp. And it's actually super easy on stripe, you can type in stripe C Corp. And you could literally just like convert it with for like $500 to a C Corp. But I would suggest, which is what we're going to do have a CPA sit down with us. That does stuff with startups. Because when you do that you actually have to like distribute the shares to the founders and all that and we want to make sure like, none of that is incorrect and stuff. Oh, yeah. You'd never want to fuck with the IRS. No. You are better off challenging the army than fucking with IRS. Yeah. And the IRS will like they'll they'll be sneaky like that they like won't tell you you did it wrong. And then you're like, Damn, I just owe like a couple $1,000 because I made one line off, you know, right? Oh, yeah. And it's that's one of those you even as the owner, you want to know your taxes because you like you could tell your your account that you hired like, Hey, we always something doesn't seem right kind of thing. Like you. You weren't looking to that. You're just oblivious to it. So yeah, she was she was telling me about this business owner. And luckily he they figured it out. But he did something wrong with like filing the taxes with the employer employees he had and a bunch of other things. He just did it wrong. And the IRS billed him for like $100,000. And he was like, Whoa, like, I there's no way I owe this much money, took it to the CPA, and the CPA is like looking everything's like oh my gosh, like you did this wrong, or this or this. Ultimately, she like, knew some people in IRA or sorry, IRS. And then ultimately, like they were able to redo it for a fee. But at any rate, he didn't have to pay that money, but it's like, Damn, like he always made a six figure mistake just because this person tried to do it on their own, you know? Oh, yeah. That's one of those. One of my guests. One of my first two guests, actually, he was a tax person. And that's the biggest one he told me. He's like, he's like, I'm not trying to push people towards me, but he's like, I'd literally have an insight with the IRS. You pay me my fee of 100 200 bucks. I can go to Tax Court for you and fix everything. I'm like, dude, that's cool. Mike. I didn't know that. He's like, Oh, yeah. He's like, because I'm not an official lawyer. But I have the same power as them. He's like, 200 bucks, you pay much paying for my time to fill out everything and then get me like a meal. My dad 100% worth it. Oh, boy. It's so worth it kind of thing. Like, what you what you billing? What's your services? Um, I get let's see, I have an international team. He's like, I can't do anything in the US. But I know people outside. He's like, so let's say it's all in the US. I'll handle everything for taxes for you. Wow, that's awesome. And he's like, it's like a small flat fee. And I'm like, that's it. I said, I'm doing us like you probably gonna be like, Oh, and by the way, because of that flat fee. You can write it off to Yeah, he's like, you're totally odd. He's like, yes. Just give it to me. I'll figure it I'll give you the bill and you're good to go. And you're good man. 100% worth it. Right. I was just the way he told me is again, I'm like a tax lawyer. If I being a lawyer, I'm like, I feel like people are intentionally trying to shut that down. Okay, thing. Yeah, I agree. Because I'm like that gravy train. To have people like him just walk in and be like, yeah, my client paid me 200 bucks for the day for the lawyers or like, they paid me 5000 It's like, Yeah, I agree v chain gone quick. Yeah, that's funny. But that was the biggest thing he told me is just like, yeah, just knew your basis of taxes. So you can file everything with like QuickBooks or whatever. And give it to me. And I'll do the dirty work. And I'll find everything and be late. You file this. Yes, technically, it's right. But you did this. What's wrong? Yes, I agree. So many pit holes in the tax code. Oh, my gosh, there it really is. And that's why you pay people to do it that no way better than we do. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And the way keeps moving, especially with COVID. Like, how many rules changed within a year kind of thing? Yeah. And it's like, it's gonna, there's so many different ways that it could change in the next few years as well. So like, I've talked to a lot of different managing partners of accounting firms, and they're like, man, we're getting calls, like left and right about, like, what could happen with the new estate tax? What could happen with like, the income tax, so it's like, people just want to know this information. And it's those those individuals like the CPAs, the managing partners of these law firms like, or sorry, accounting firms, they're the ones that are like constantly watching this. So and I think it's important to understand like in the world, what's happening from like, especially a business standpoint, like, Okay, what is this tax code that may get passed? What is this, but then at the end of the day, going back and actually call on somebody who like, that's their job to know exactly what's going on. But you need to know, I think the best way to be successful in business is know a little about a lot. So you can actually, like converse with different types of people. Like I could go into a room with all tax people and have like a conversation about it. I couldn't hone in on like a ton of different things, but like, I would know enough to talk to all of them. And I could do the same thing with a roomful of attorneys as well. Like, it's important to know a little bit about a lot. It's and that's like, we were saying earlier, just knowing enough to function, but you don't have to make it work kind of Yeah. 100% Dude, this has been awesome. Um, where I'd like to cut it there. So where can what are what have you been doing other than work and working on your AB? During COVID? time? Yeah. Man, I'm actually getting married July 17. So super excited. My fiance, Jacqueline, she's great. So I don't know if this is going live like after that. But but but yeah, so that's what kind of I've been working on personal life, just getting everything ready for that. Super excited. And then we got the honeymoon after that. So the back half of July, I'm just going to be unplugging and super excited to say like, cultivate that relationship there. And then other thing, I mean, we're looking for a house right now, which I'm in Charlotte, North Carolina, similar to like, basically the whole us, it's so hard to find a house right now, because the interest is so low. So that's kind of our next like, personal step, which we're going through that right now. And then, of course, I'm like level, you know, just keep building the podcast, keep obviously doing the right things in the eight to five, and then, you know, continuing to build the app where it needs to be. And then I think I mentioned this earlier, but we are, once we launched beta, we're gonna approach you know, a group of investors, which I'm fortunate because I've had a lot of founders on my podcast, that they're like, hey, once you do that beta, let me know. And I can introduce you to some VC Venture Capital Group that have actually given us funding that I think would be interested. So it's not as much like let me send 1000 emails with my pitch deck and hope that 100 respond and hope that 10 give us a conversation. It's more like, hey, let me just talk to this person, this person, this person, this person, have an introduction at a coffee shop, and then hopefully, it'll be like, kind of an easier translation transition rather than having to like, reach out to 100 investors, cold turkey. But yeah, man, that's what I'm working on. And then you can follow me on LinkedIn is Chris Chapman, and then Instagram to Chris chap. chap. I post a lot of stuff on the podcast on there. I make stories every day just about personal development, finance, entrepreneurship, startups, stuff like that. So if you want to know more information on any of that, or just kind of follow what I'm up to, I really just document my whole day. I did one unplugged day, Saturdays, I don't touch Instagram or anything. But I do. I do document like the days and show people what I'm doing. I am super transparent about kind of daily life on there. That's awesome. So what are some people aspiring to be like us? A app, printer, whatever it's called. What are some tips or advice you'd give for that aspiring person? Yeah. So if you do want to launch an app, like go back to that original advice, don't try to boil the ocean. And then just get the just get the concept out there. Like literally we grab sheets sheets of paper, colored pencils, and just start writing what we want that to look like all the way down to like what we want the profile to look like what we want the newsfeed to look like what we want the Back button to look like. And so spend time on that like boring foundation stuff. before you're like oh, Let's build this app. Let's do this and like, like, spend time on that boring foundation stuff because it's super important. Like I just opened a book bag that I found under my bed the other day. And as I wish I like didn't throw this away. But I found like all of our original drawings that we had from when we first started, it was just hilarious. And so do that. And then also don't rush the process. You know, like to be completely honest, like we thought of this idea in 2018, just kind of like talk about every now and then really started it in 2019, we're actually going to launch beta in March of 2020. But that didn't really work because the travel industry took a massive, multi billion dollar hit, which actually helped us out because it was nowhere near where we needed it. So I think patience is a huge aspect of it as well. Like, don't try to rush into it, build that foundation and have the patience to obviously like why there's some of the storms that happen. Dude, I'm looking forward to your app being live and hopefully getting emails saying politely please break my app, because I would still you know, beforehand, I'm for some reason really good at breaking apps. Yeah. Did I love to hear that? That's awesome. It's a bit of an absolute honor. You mentioned a few places the Instagram what are the all the social medias people can get? You and website? Yeah, so you can just find me on. On on LinkedIn, Chris Chapman, social media, Instagram. Best place, Chris chap, chap. And then if you want to sign up to be a beta tester for our app, it's just visit travel app calm. And then it'll just have a prompt to to have your email address. And then we'll obviously be sending you some updates as it gets closer to launch. But yeah, I think we have to cap it at 1000 right now based on like our server that we have set up but we do have like about 500 kind of waitlisted beta testers. So there is room if anyone else kind of listener wise wants to jump in on that. Hopefully you get a massive spike from this show. Yeah, sounds good, man. I appreciate it. This was an awesome time. An absolute honor. Thank you, sir.