Life Imitating Business, Imitating Art w/ Marc DeVincent | Ep. 77

In this episode David and Gary chat with Marc DeVincent, CEO and Creator of The Life Writer, Ltd. talk about all things nostalgic and the business of reflection. 

Links:

Marcs LinkedIn

www.TheLifeWriter.com

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David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.

In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.

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Transcript

David: 0:00

Hi everyone, welcome to the biz dev Podcast, the podcast about developing your business. I'm David Baxter, your host, and I'm joined today by Gary Voight, who I bet you didn't know this is the inventor of skinny jeans. Did you know that I budgeted Gary, I knew that you like wearing them. The skateboard the other pants just too too wide. Well, he just needed to vacuum seal your legs.

Gary: 0:28

I was a skateboarder in the 90s. And the jeans were huge. So I figured Yeah, the only way to make a mark for myself is to go with the complete opposite when it's titled flexible.

David: 0:37

Nice. And I'm sure your skater friends in the 90s really appreciated that.

Gary: 0:42

Well baggy jeans are coming back now. So I gotta find something else. I'm going to try to go with the skinnier jeans, skinnier jeans, skinny, nice,

David: 0:51

just masking tape made of denim. Alright, more importantly, we have Mark devincent. He is the CEO and co founder at the life writer limited. Welcome to the show, Mark.

Marc: 1:04

Hey, thank you. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

David: 1:07

We are going to talk more about Mark's journey and his company in a minute. But first we're going to start talking a little bit about AI and all that fun stuff. It's almost a perennial topic. I'm stealing that from Gary, he said that earlier. And it was smart. So I'm gonna sound smart.

Gary: 1:20

The Yeah, we used to do topics that were kind of timely. But then we kind of veered away from that. Because if we recorded an episode and didn't come out for a while, then that topic just seemed kind of out of date. But this AI thing is not going away. So it's just going to becoming an expanding topic. As we move forward.

David: 1:39

It's specifically apropos because I got my invite today from Microsoft. So I now on my edge browser, I can speak directly to Bing. And it's very magical. And they've gone there a girl because behind the scenes, she was Sydney. But being the Chatbot will now answer my questions. And I haven't done anything weird yet.

Gary: 2:04

Chap GPT. And I've also used mid journey the image generation. But Chad CBTI, just use it more for a reference. And believe it or not, it's just like a faster way to kind of search for things. So I'm assuming the having it in the browser with Bing is going to make that even faster, too.

David: 2:24

I believe that we are in the midst of a an absolute paradigm shift. And I know that's easy to overblow it's Oh, that guy's full of it. But this technology, and maybe it's being maybe it's not maybe some of the Google Events. But this whole concept of the AI chat the ability to talk directly to a computer where it really understands you. And it comes back with pretty good responses. It's going to change the world, how we search how the Internet itself is built will be very different in five years than it is right now, because of what we're seeing. Now. Again, it might be very different in terms of what we have now versus then. But these are the pivotal times, I think and I'm not trying to be prognostication, or anything here or prognosticator. Anyway, I just thank you. I just think that it's we are seeing the beginning, we are watching the ground shift underneath our feet. Because computers are now relational. Meaning we can talk to them and an answer they can. It's funny because like Siri and all the others, Alexa and all them. They've been neat, and people like them for a long time. But they can answer one thing. And so there was no context. That's the real jump. Now I can ask it a question and ask it a follow up question and keep asking questions. And it will refine and change and mold somewhat to funny results if you read some of those articles. But I'm rambling a bit, but I am truly excited about this. Mark. I'm curious what your thoughts are.

Marc: 3:53

While we've seen some big changes for sure, just with, like automatic voice transcription. That was something we tried to put in the app probably about eight years ago. And people said, well, we'll try it. We'll give it a good try. We eventually brought it in. But I mean, just to see the change in that much time. Just in translation is amazing. But to actually have the software be able to do some thinking on its own. We all know it's coming for sure. And as you guys know, there's some concern with that too. But the genies out of the bottle. Yeah. What?

Gary: 4:28

I've noticed that the accuracy and the transcriptions has gotten a lot better lately. Yes,

David: 4:34

yes. We use Trent we transcribe all of our episodes using otter, and it's still I would say we're getting to the 95% mark for it, which is a big jump. We were probably at 590. And they were pretty hilarious. Even I mean, we've been on the podcast a little over a year, I guess. And the first ones we started using the transcription were pretty bad. And they're getting pretty remarkable now What I find so interesting, so I was playing with Bing today, the first thing I asked it, it was Monday morning. And I said, Hey, write me a, a letter to the big pixel employees to welcome them for the start of the week, make it funny and make it short. That was my my thing. And what was crazy is is smallest big pixel is being new that we built software. It was I'm trying to find if I have it here real quick, this might take an edit here. But what it said was, it's Monday again, and you know what that means another week of creating awesome digital products for our clients. You are the best team in the world. And I am so proud of you. This has been saying this. But amazingly, I mean,

Gary: 5:47

no, I'm saying

David: 5:48

no, no, Gary, I don't say nice things to you. But what was amazing to me was just, I mean, it was kind of poorly worded and very ham fisted. But it knew we built digital products. It searched us up on the internet grabbed ours, this was all within seconds, grabbed who we were what we did, shoved it in contextualize it, turned it into a sentence. That's amazing. It's just amazing. Now, it's not always right. Please don't get me wrong. What I'm afraid of is the future where everybody believes it's fake news, because the bot told them that, right? Because the bot is, is they call them. I read in an article they call them hallucinations, when the AI bot gets it wrong, because they call them hallucinations. Because the AI bot is so confident. What it tells you is like today is Tuesday, there's no there's no arguing the sky is green, and today is Tuesday. And you're like okay, and it believes it in the context of that chat you're having it bleeds. So they have these hallucinations. And when you get the further on down the road, if you talk to for like hours, it will start getting really squirrely, New York Times did a thing about how it said it loved him, and that he wanted him to leave his wife. And she doesn't really love his wife. Like crazy. Raising

Gary: 7:09

garbage in garbage out, you know, metaphor, a whole new meaning when you have a gigantic internet to dig from. And, you know, I mean, I'm not saying there's a lot of garbage out there. But there's a lot of garbage out there.

David: 7:24

How much fanfiction that poor thing is consumed. I mean, it's just crazy. But I do think it's neat. It's and we we talked about this before me and Gary did a little quick podcast just to talk about the changing of it. But I'm excited about I think Google is scared for the first time in 20 years, which I'm all I'm here for. I'm not I'm not anti Google or anything, but I think it's nice to see competition. I'm very pro competition. And Google has been sitting on their laurels for a while because no one can touch them in search. But now being which has notoriously been a punch line for for search engines is now coming in. And they're proud of it.

Gary: 8:04

It's the Microsoft Zune of search engines. Oh, oh my gosh, it's a reoccurring joke for you, oh, Aramark, it's a little inside.

David: 8:13

Not even a joke. It's just so sad. It's like the only one you have any opportunity to make fun of So Martin, I will give you the last thoughts on the AI thing, and we'll dive into your company would tell me what you think.

Marc: 8:27

I mean, as far as AI, I mean, you know, we know it's coming. I mean, it's just how it works, the natural development, I mean, hopefully, we can use it for good and not so much for nefarious things, of course. So there'll be some people that will try to do that. But any kind of new technology, as you know, can be used in different ways. I mean, hopefully, some good people use some creativity and design some things that are extremely valuable, that serve people in the world. So I hope that's more the case than the other direction.

Gary: 8:56

There are some incredible things that are happening in the medical and science field with AI, being able to develop like sequence proteins that might be beneficial to like vaccines and, and cures and stuff. So that's interesting. That'll be cool to see.

David: 9:11

So tell me mark a little bit about the life writer, tell me about your company and how it got started.

Marc: 9:16

Sure, okay. Yeah, the life writer we have a pretty simple mission really, that is to make life story memoir, book writing and sharing easy to inspire, empower and improve lives because that's what the memoir writing process and the end result does naturally. And the way this whole thing started, is kind of funny, because it was all by accident, really. About 12 years ago, my wife's dad was turning 90, and said, Hey, you're a writer. Can you write something about his life, you know, at 91 page thing or whatever? And I'm an overachiever. So I said, Terry, come on. We can do better than that. Let's write a whole book for him. You know, just yeah, let's do that. It's great. So we thought we'd sit down with him for one weekend and knock it out. Dear heavens, that job actually was about five or six times longer and harder. And at first he was like, Well, hold on, man. I mean, I'm not wealthy. I'm not a celebrity, I don't really deserve to have a book about me. Because the knee jerk reaction for a lot of people's Well, since only those folks write books and sell them to the mass audience. I don't I'm at that level. But we told him Hey, is this is for the family, only your audience is your family. He's the artist tribe. And so when we sat down and started, man, he loved the process. And all these memories, and all these stories started flooding back to him, because and we've seen this a lot. When you start doing that when your brain starts to all these things come flooding back. So it was really cool. He loved it. And it actually took us six months. And then we looked at his photographs. We scanned him, we recorded what he said, we asked him questions. And then we were done. We can pull out material into a narrative. And we got into a format using like word then we went to a local printer said How much for a dozen books they said 500 bucks. We're like, man, really, but alright, so we paid it. If I was kind of steep, give out those books on Christmas Eve to everybody. And man, the family they were blown away by they they really loved that one person was teared up a little bit. It became an instant family hair. And, of course other family members and friends started asking us Hey, will you do this for me? I'm like, Yeah, sure. I mean, yeah. And so we started writing life stories by hand with people, one on one across the table, ask them questions. But we saw a problem too, because the process was so time intensive, we had to charge at least 2500 bucks or $3,000, just to make even a small profit, you know, and so many people wanted this for their family, almost not everyone, but a huge percent of folks really want is is there any way you can make it cheaper? We really want but we can't really afford it. So I was working at a Honda at the time. And I don't know if you guys know much about the Honda history or Mr. Honda himself, but Honda's they're all about creativity and innovation. They just push that constantly. So in my mind when I heard that, it's like, dear heavens, because we're using that same process and the same questions. There's got to be a way to automate this. And so he said, Let's, there's no app, no apps exists. Let's do it. Let's create an app that makes life story of memoir, book writing easy, affordable and available to everybody. That was our goal. But goals and ideas are one thing. As you guys probably know, the brain is something that is really cool into the world. And it's it's quite something else. These last 10 years. So yeah, these last 10 years, I've been bringing into a viable app that people like and they've been, it's, it's been it's been a journey. It really has.

David: 12:54

I believe that. So So I am interested in you know, say my mother in law. I want to get her story down, what would be the process, I just go download an app. And it asks her a bunch of questions, she writes them herself. How does that give me the practical side of this,

Marc: 13:11

that was one of the fundamental decisions we had to make when we design the app. And so we've kind of decided to go both ways. And as I was saying that two thirds of the customers usually buy it for themselves. And that's when I got cut off. But so we have those two options. There's also a third choice, believe it or not, and that is we've added a family and friends collaboration link to the app also. So folks can write by themselves. And then if they want their family members or friends to be part of the process, they can email them a link, they click on that. And they have access to their stories. So other people can add content, edit stuff, and that kind of thing, add photos, or whatever if they want to also. So there's really three ways there's only three ways to complete the book.

David: 13:53

I had bought my mother few years ago, because it's been several years ago. Now. What are one of those, it was a notebook, it was a physical thing. And the whole point of it was fill out. This is your life. It was something like that very similar concept. But she had to fill it out. It was just writing, right? It wasn't videos and anything like that. And I can tell you, I believe zero pages were ever filled out because she's like, Yeah, right. And I mean, she wasn't, there was too much work on her end. So I'm curious. Your side of it sounds much more interactive, which sounds like a better way of going about it.

Marc: 14:26

Yeah, thank you. I mean, from working with people in the real world, where you sit down across the table, and you talk to them, and you work with them to pull their story from them. And to put that into a book that they like. I mean, that process teaches you a lot. And so we've tried to make the app super user friendly and super flexible too, because people have different, you know, wants needs and desires of course. So the app is pretty flexible. But let me say this, we from deal with customers. You guys know this, it's all about the customer. If you talk to the customer, they'll tell you everything you want to know and so the The app version now is three. That's pretty good. But version four is coming. It's even better. So I mean, it is really good and the interactive, this kind of thing, but we have ways and we thought of ways to make it a heck of a lot better also for me talking, but people do seem to like it, and it's good. But being the perfectionist that I am, I can see a lot of ways to make a lot better to

David: 15:20

a while the process of improvement never stops. That is for sure. Yes,

Marc: 15:24

yeah. So

David: 15:27

if you are I mean, I, I loved it. I can totally understand why this costs$3,000. But I love the idea of having my mother in law, father in law, go into a room be interviewed, like he's a famous celebrity. And that whole process sounds so cool. Yeah, shortly where they're, you know, it reminds me of NPR used to do a thing where they would to, to related people generally would get into a booth together, and they would tell stories, and that which became a podcast all by itself. Oh, yeah. I can't remember who's called had a cool name, anyway. Yeah. That's what this reminds me of images are similarities to that?

Marc: 16:09

I'd say yes. And no, I'd say yes. And no, I mean, the thing about it is because in the past, because in the past, only celebrities and the wealthy could write their stories. This is a brand new offering. So when people when you when you propose something like, Well, what this is a brand new thing, I don't really understand it at all. So it's not like you have a new pizza shop with a new type of crust or something like, oh, yeah, I can't wait to try it. So folks, because they have never written their life story before, people, they're not really sure how to get this and you touched upon this. Believe it or not about 75 or 80% of people, they try to write their story. And they actually want to, and most of them stop, kind of like your relative that with that book. And a lot of folks are like, this is something that's really important to me, I want to pass this on to our family, my grandkids, kids, the world possibly, I want to have something that has some value, and there. So a lot of folks want to create something that is real has some value. And it's not just not something that makes them look bad, real. And so that's why we came up with these 550 questions that we have inside the app, there's that there's a large number of questions. And customers don't have to use the questions. They can use all of them, some of them or none of them. It's totally up to them, they can look through the questions. But those questions, not only does it make the process really easy, because they come with example, answers also. But also, those questions, make the content inside the book really good too, like you said garbage in garbage out. It's exactly the same. If you ask them really good questions. That's really important to them about their lives. And they have a chance to, yeah, second that to answer. It makes the content really good. So those questions make it easy, but also it makes the content, high quality for people's books, because that's important to the customer.

Gary: 18:03

Now, when you started this, obviously the idea is a good one and it was tested. How did you then conceive turning this into an actual business? Like what was the process between we should do something about this? This is a problem that we need to solve? And how are we going to do it? We're going to create an app. So from that moment on when you decided this is going to be a business, what was the process? Like? What kind of trials and tribulations did you have to go through from the concept of turning it into a business to actually making it a business?

Marc: 18:33

Yeah, that road has been very interesting, I must say, and I've learned we've learned a lot my wife and I have learned a lot about it. My background is not an as an interpreter, although I've always wanted to be a trip. That's always my spirit of work as an engineer, and you know, in the past and things, so it was a big risk to leave behind a job, which was super secure, and that high paying to go out and do this. But let me say this, yeah. For my new stories with people, and seeing the impact it had on them. We knew we had to do this, for example, we went up to Michigan to write a life story of a woman up there. And she was talking about when she was young that her mom used to make her clothes from these flower bags. They used to buy big bags of flour live on the farm. And so her mom made all of her clothes from these flower bags, and the woman started crying. And she wasn't crying because she was upset. She was crying because she loved her mom. And she felt so grateful to her mom for doing that. To take care of her as a kid and like and when we saw that, and that is not uncommon at all. It's very common to touch people emotionally. And so when we saw it we're like, Dear God, you know, this is such a powerful and profound thing. This capability it, we've got to find some way to bring it to the world. And so my wife and I became totally committed. Really At that point to do it, I mean, because it's so so beneficial. And for me working at Honda, not that I'm a software expert I'm surely not. But from work in the technical field Honda with their creativity and this kind of thing. I thought, dear heavens, there's got to be way a way to create an app, there's got to be.

Gary: 20:18

Now when you started it, did you just bootstrap it on your own? Or did you have any other outside help any investors? Or did you go through any kind of like startup incubator to get this going? Or was this just like a side project that you funded and said, You know, I'm just gonna focus all my energy on this now, because it just means so much to me. And whatever it takes, I'm just going forward.

Marc: 20:38

Yeah, it was really a combination. It was kind of good hearted, because because I'd been there so long. And the salary was pretty high. They're more or less. They're like, hey, Hunter was going through a downturn with Hyundai and Kia. They're like, Hey, guys, has it been here for a while, we're all for you a bio package if you like, if you want, you don't have to take it if you want. So I took it, I took to develop the app. So that helped a lot. And I was left

Gary: 21:03

somewhat of a serendipitous event.

Marc: 21:07

Yes, and even more importantly, is my wife, because she was part of this process. And she saw this, and I want to talk to us a pair, there's a buyout. I mean, what do you think says, just take it, I believe in you, I'll support you go for it, I think you can do it. And so having her support really helped a lot also. So I've had it easy, because our kids were kind of grown or pretty, pretty much grown at that point, it was kind of us and my wife saw the value. And she does do what Mark do and she was a nurse. And she went back to working full time to support the business. So it's been a team effort, it's been pretty cool. Really,

Gary: 21:44

that does sound cool. And it might be surprising, but it's not the US that a lot of the clients that we have, who are in the startup phase of their business, or their passion, trying to turn that idea they had into something are usually people later in life who've already had the career and already kind of saved up, maybe their kids have gone off to college, and now they're looking for, you know, they're saying, this is the time now I've had this passion I'm gonna commit, this is the time that I'm gonna go for it. And usually those clients that are further along, not just someone out of college, who thinks they have the next big idea for Uber or whatever, and are going to become a billionaire overnight. But the actual people who have already had a career and kind of know what the workforce and reality of businesses seem to have a little bit more of a personal connection to their idea, and their passion is going to drive them. They're not afraid to go through what we call the slog, which is just the hard work after the after the ideas, you know, cemented, and then you start to build whatever you're building, and then you have to let people know that you've built it, and they could use it. So in that area in between, like, usually, it's the people that have that passion, and are a little bit older and wiser that gets through that easier. So it sounds like you and your wife kind of took advantage of that little moment in time and made it work for you. So that sounds like it was a great opportunity.

Marc: 23:10

That is a really great point that you raise up that I have never really thought about. And that is because we were a little bit older in life and stuff. And our kids were taken care of more or less. Because when you get older, you want to give back to the world and you want to make the world a better place. So for us, a big part of this is, this is such a powerful, beneficial thing that helps so many people, we've got to find a way to do that to help people. So we're in that phase of our life where we want to give back. So that's been our primary intention really is to help people by doing this.

Gary: 23:45

Very cool. Now I know as of right now, you have a website is the app and the I guess the the part where you're interviewing and writing people, is that all done online through the website, or do you have a separate like app that you use?

Marc: 23:59

Yeah, good question. Yeah, the way it works is that we have a website, and the app is part of the website. So when you log in there, you get connected to the app automatically. And the way the app is designed as far as an app through the website. It's through this really good company. And it's been designed to be super flexible, but also because it's hosted in the cloud. It's available to just about anyone anywhere. And so it's really scalable. It's it works on all yeah, it works on all the devices and anywhere. There's internet, it should work and it pretty much does. So having that software company support us has made a huge difference.

Gary: 24:38

Yeah, we call those progressive web apps where they're apps that work in the browser agnostic to whatever platform or device you're using the scale and trick or whatever to whatever device but they're not made specifically for you know, iPhone or Android or iPad or anything like that. The one of the thing I wanted to ask now, this is a very niche product with a very well, it's a broad audience, but it's a very weird target audience when it comes to marketing. Right? I'm curious as to how do you get the word out about the business? And how do you market to potential clients? Is that have you found a path that works best for for you for this specific business? Or do you just go the traditional route of like, you know, lead generation and, you know, ads on Google and whatnot?

Marc: 25:27

Yeah, your questions are so good, I must say, because you're touching on some of the these are fundamental problems that we've had, and you are exactly right about the customer. There's at least five or six different customers with different wants, needs and desires that we've seen in the real world. And so it's been really hard for us, at least for me, in such a small with a small team we have like to focus on, well, should we work for that customer, that customer should we advertise for that customer. And because we've spent so much of our money, we spent over$100,000, bringing the app into being there's really not a whole lot of money left over for professional marketing. And so I've been trying to market the app myself, really, and my wife and son has been helping, but we've done, they've done a good job, I've done a pretty poor job myself. I mean, I'm an engineer and an inventor, type person, a creative person. So marketing, for me has been difficult. So to answer your question on marketing, we really haven't done a very good job with marketing to be honest about it.

Gary: 26:26

Well, I can't tell you one thing. A lot of companies and startups or small businesses before they get their own gravity, as we like to refer to it as before, enough people know about them that the word of mouth is already out there. A lot of smaller companies are finding most of their success in marketing comes from referrals, and referrals and networking, word of mouth. And it usually starts from very tight group, like friends and family first, and then extends to another, you know, circle outside of that. And then eventually, if the product is good and improving, and people enjoy it, you get that word of mouth referral, you know, and layers going deeper and deeper out there. So I can understand spending, not having a huge budget for marketing. And at the same time, if not every business owner can be the one passionate about the product. And also be the one passionate about marketing, and also be the one passionate about sales. Like there's a lot of different levels that kind of have to get hit in order for you to continue success. So I wish you the best of luck. And since you have identified these markets, and these target, you know, clients and audiences, maybe try to expand that network as much as possible, try to get those referrals keep coming in, maybe ask for a lot of reviews. See if you can try to douse up your website with a bunch of reviews and SEO to just get it out there with minimal budget.

Marc: 27:52

That's a good, that's a really good suggestion. And that's probably how, where customers are coming from. I think I know we've had a fair number of referrals. And let me say this, though, you're right about having to wear all these different hats. I mean, as you know, as a business owner has, you have to wear at least 567 different hats all the time, which is okay, you know, it's fine. But for marketing for me, I'm a pretty quiet and humble person. I'm an introvert also. So marketing for me, it's been something that's really difficult. So believe it or not, we are looking for we're looking for partnerships with someone who is a marketer and marketing expert or this kind of marketing expertise. And so we realized we have to collaborate with others to scale properly. And we actually look forward to it. I mean, in high school, I was lucky enough to be on a soccer team that won the state championship. And so I've seen what teams can do when people work together toward a common goal. So I'm looking forward to working with others to scale our business properly and, and possibly around the world global executive, that is an option.

Gary: 28:57

Oh, yeah, never think small. That sounds good. Alright, so I do want to ask because your situation is unique. But your situation is also in line with some of the other small business owners and entrepreneurs. There's always overlapping layers. And there's usually a couple pieces of advice that everybody has that might be similar, but a little different based on your own experience. So I wanted to ask you, when we ask everybody, what would your top three pieces of advice be for any entrepreneur or new business that is just starting out?

Marc: 29:30

Well, I've got my cheat sheet here. I knew these questions were coming. So I have a cheat sheet here for you.

Gary: 29:36

Good, always be prepared.

Marc: 29:40

I'll say the first thing is this. The first thing is, at least for us, the project you undertake is is probably going to take a lot longer than you think and it's probably going to cost a lot more than you think. And we found what the software software cost. Someone told me a few years ago that hey, whenever you get a software quote, you better triple that because that's what's going to cost in the real world. Now, that's all if that's true or not, maybe that's the bean extreme. But to answer your question, the cost and the time involved, usually a lot more than you think they're probably going to be. So pick something that you really love that you're really passionate about, and that you really want to work on for a long time.

Gary: 30:20

Yeah, that makes total sense. That's we hear the passion thing is definitely on everybody's list. So that's sure as far as the cost and the time being prepared for that. Yeah, we've had answers that go along the same line with cash flow, managing your cash flow, managing, you know, your timeframes, and have realistic expectations and knowing that something is going to come up in between so

Marc: 30:42

yeah, that's right, you're right. You've seen it seems like you have a fair amount of experience yourself with startups and seeing this these kinds of things.

Gary: 30:49

Well, that's typically what we'd like to cover on this podcast is we would like to hear everybody's journey from beginning to where they are. And it's usually the small things that they don't think are a big deal that inspire others, like in other words, everybody can go on a podcast and be like, my business is great, I had this great idea. I put in the effort and the time we got, you know, investors, and then now it's a super company, and we're all happy. Nobody learns from that, you know what I mean? Everybody learns from the, you know, the small guys who were like, you know, it took me a year and a half, and I was, I was coming down to the end of my phones, and just barely didn't know if I was going to keep going or not. And then one little thing happened, you know, which sparked this, and then that led to this. And then, so the journeys, we've, we've heard them and we love hearing those journeys. So what I'm saying, you know, when the questions I'm asking, you are coming from me listening to other people's experiences, yeah,

Marc: 31:45

that's cool. Yeah. It's I say, this is almost like life story writing for you. Except it's like business story writing. So you're learning quite a bit about startups from talking to people. And that's, it's the same thing as life story writing, why people should write their story and share it. Because we can all learn so much, from listening to people's life stories, definitely. Here's number, here's number two, here's answer number two for you. I'd say number two is, you have to believe in yourself. Because a lot of times when you're inventing something new or doing something that's kind of unusual, people aren't going to understand it. And they might not support you that much. And I've had a lot of support. So I'm lucky. But a lot of times, it's not that easy for people. So you've got to really believe in yourself. And you've got to keep going, when it seems like you're gonna fail, or it's you want to quit. So you really got to believe in yourself, no one's gonna give you permission to succeed, no one's gonna say, yeah, do this, we think you should do this. A lot of times, you have to have faith in yourself in your own ability. And that's easier said than done sometimes. And, you know, everyone has their own different religious belief and things. So I'm not going to go into religion. And I'm a super religious person, although I was an altar boy when I was young, but I'll just say this, especially as an older person, but as you get older, we want to give back to the world. And I believe that people come into this world, to help people, other people. That's why we're here, really, and I think we all get judged on that also. So really, it's in everyone's best interest to help each other out and that kind of thing. So religious aspect or not, whatever your passion or task or mission is, you think in this world, have faith in yourself and have faith in a creator? If you do believe that, and have faith that you can do it? Because Because if you don't think you can, you certainly can't. If you think you can, you probably can if you if you persist long enough. The third one is something that I will give to Tony Shea, the founder of Zappos, have you heard of him before?

Gary: 33:45

Have not I've heard Zappos,

Marc: 33:47

okay. He was the he was the founder. But let me say this. He sold it to Amazon for I think about almost $2 billion. But anyway, people come to Him all the time, hey, I want to be successful like you. How can I do? He said, man, there's there's three keys, three keys to success, persistence, persistence, and persistence. You know? So persistence is a big part of it. It really has. I mean, I think most of the real world stories are people that hope does persist and keep going and going and going, and they succeed eventually. But the media and these kind of things that's not really sexy, you know. So there's a lot of stories where people succeed overnight, you know, and you hear about the story, hey, I sat down at the bar, and I wrote on a napkin and there was I was rich the next day, you know, I mean,

Gary: 34:34

yeah, that's a lot. The our overnight success came after 20 years of hard work.

Marc: 34:41

Yeah, that's true. But that doesn't sell and that's not sexy. You know?

Gary: 34:47

You can't put that up on social media and have people follow you right away. Yes,

Marc: 34:51

that's right. That's right. But I think, too, at the end of the day, that that's a character develop, but also having that persistence. I mean, that device absurd character, you know, as a person, so it's good for you also. But let me say there's two besides Tony Shea. And Honda, also, Mr. Han himself was all about persistence. Also in the Japanese, they really liked the snapping turtle. Because that turtle, when it bites you, it will never let go. Even if you kill it, his head will stay attached to you. So the Japanese really like that kind of persistent attitude also.

Gary: 35:25

All right? Well, Mark, it has been great talking to you and getting to know you. If people want to reach out and, you know, start to write their own life story or if they want to reach out and perhaps start writing a loved one's life story or family members life story. We have your website here as the life writer.com. Is there any other place that they can reach out to you? Or do you prefer people to just kind of contact you through the website?

Marc: 35:50

The website is good, but we also have a toll free number also. So people are welcome to call or text me on the toll free number. I'll give you that number. If you if you would like to take it if you want it. Yeah, absolutely put it out the oddest Okay, sure. It's, it's the numbers 888-501-7325. So we get a lot of calls and texts from people also, that's the fastest way but my email address is Mark mIRC at the life writer.com also. So either one of those is fine. And I'm happy to chat with anyone. Even if you're not going to buy our product, I'm happy to talk to you and talk to potential customers about how they can do it possibly other ways too. Because lifestyle writing is something that we feel passionate about, that everyone should do for their benefit for their family's benefit and for the benefit of society. So even if you're not going to buy our product, that's fine. Call me Text me, email me and I'll try to help you find somebody to do it yourself. And with that being said, too, if there's anyone that wants to collab who's B would be tempted to collaborate with us, especially in terms of marketing. Here I am let's chit chat?

Gary: 36:54

Yeah, well, I'll make sure that we include the links to the website, the link to your or the link to your LinkedIn page will include the email address and the phone number that you gave us as well. So those will be available in the show notes to this episode. And if anybody wants to reach out to us if they have any questions or comments, you can leave a comment below this video on YouTube or you can email us at Hello at the big pixel.net or you can reach out to us on any of our social media channels. And we're even on Tik Tok. Don't tell David but we have funny videos and dancing on there. David actually had to leave before this podcast was over. So I'm gonna wrap it up. And I just want to say again, thank you very much for being our guest mark. It was very nice meeting you. And I loved hearing the story of life writer.

Marc: 37:38

Hey, The pleasure was all mine. I appreciate your interest and your questions. Were really really sharp, no BS. So I appreciate talking to you. It's been fun.

Gary: 37:49

Thank you. All right. And so with that, we will see you guys next week.