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The Podcast
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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919-275-0646
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___________________________________
Submit Your Questions to:
hello@thebigpixel.net
OR comment on our YouTube videos! - Big Pixel, LLC - YouTube
Our Hosts
David Baxter - CEO of Big Pixel
Gary Voigt - Creative Director at Big Pixel
The Podcast
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.
Contact Us
hello@thebigpixel.net
919-275-0646
FB | IG | LI | TW | TT : @bigpixelNC
Big Pixel
1772 Heritage Center Dr
Suite 201
Wake Forest, NC 27587
Music by: BLXRR
Hi, everyone, welcome to the biz dev Podcast, the podcast about developing your business. I'm David Baxter, joined as always by Gary Voight, who is also an amateur synchronized swimmer. How's it going, man?
Gary:It's going pretty good. My last competition went very well. So I might be looking at some sponsorships turning pro.
David:Nice. Maybe you can get one of those earplugs sponsors have always been amazed at how intense
Gary:you're seeing you're pointing at your nose. So I don't know that's a plug.
David:Plugs. Nose, but no, I hear out of my nose. That's why it's so large. Anyway. Anywho so we'll keep up on his career on synchronized swimming. More importantly, we are joined by Tim Whitney, who is joining us. He is the CEO of trade winds. And we're going to be talking to him about what trade winds is and all that good stuff. But I wanted to start we're gonna go do a black blast from the past a little bit and talk crypto. Because this is something that Tim enjoys very much. And I had heard from a little birdie, Tim that you are a crypto fan. Is that correct? Or is that incorrect? Because I'm not if you've ever listened to the show, I'm not so I thought we could spar Let's go.
Tim:I liked that. I think you may not like the fight we're about to get into because I'm also not technically a fan of crypto or cryptocurrency. I think it's been oversold and overhyped. I'm actually a big, big fan of web three, the blockchain, which is the technology underneath it. That's the more important thing, not the crypto.
Gary:Oh, come on, Tim. Two against one.
David:No, because I'm exactly right where you are. I thought you were pro crypto. And I was like, let's go. But if you're not then what I want to ask you then. Because I've thought the same thing about blockchain. But here's the problem I'm finding with Blockchain. Outside of crypto, which is was the killer app, right? Everyone said this is the entry to blockchain. We're going to show everybody the power of it and then it's gonna take over the world. Okay, fair, it's cool tech. But crypto has proven to be a Ponzi scheme. I'm sure I'll get hate mail for that. But for all intents and purposes, NF T's and blockchain I'm sorry, and crypto as turned out to be for all intents and purposes, a Ponzi scheme, legalized or not? So what is the killer app of blockchain now that crypto has exploded? How does blockchain has this tech underneath it? How does it rise from those ashes?
Tim:Yeah, yeah, I think you're right I mean, quickly, just just kind of debris of that is that it should have been blockchain web three development first. And then the coin was a byproduct of that the currency and then it became this kind of zombie. It flipped all of a sudden, right? We forgot about what it was built upon the protocols. And then everybody thought this Bitcoin Aetherium issue in you new coins and things like that were the hot topic. And you're right, that's where people got killed. I don't know why became a beanie baby all of a sudden, but those are going to have to die. Unfortunately, when you have something brand new like that, and you're sending out in a frontier like crypto, you have to have people get killed a little bit before you get regulated. So we're not there yet. It's the pendulum still swinging. That being said, what is the hype thing, the smart contract is the hype thing. That's where things are going to be exponential as we move through future proofing for industries and sectors, the finance is just one transportations, documentation, legal documents, and you know, all the way through, if you've got a great idea and you want to you want to protect it, you can put it on the blockchain through a smart contract. That's what's going to really drive forward. The world the technology. Now, when
David:you say, when you say smart contract, that makes me as boring as when Gary talks. What does that mean? What is a smart contract? Nobody
Tim:said it was sexy. I'm just saying it's a technology underneath, right? I mean, but if I'm
David:an idiot, don't say anything. Gary, what does that mean? You know, at the lowest common denominator, what does
Gary:encryption and security are? Yeah, what is? What is the
Tim:document? Right? It's an if then documents. So take take finance and the smart contract. If this happens, Gary and David are trading a Snickers for a Bitcoin or a eath. If Gary says yes, I'll give you this snicker. And David says, Yes, I'll give you this amount of eath point five or one. If you're willing to pay overpay for the Snickers. Then the smart contract executes at that time, it's irrefutable. You can't go back and say I didn't give you that I only I only gave you half the snickers for that note, it's on the blockchain. It's irrefutable. It's locked and loaded. It's executed by a smart contract. It's different from the Bitcoin Blockchain that doesn't operate With smart contracts, so I think Bitcoin is the coin du jour that's, that's kind of the standard US dollar currency that we all live by. But the smart contract is actually the technology that's going to drive web three and what they call digital assets, you all should really start referring to this stuff as digital assets for your couple in FTEs, and things like that. Now, those are quite the scheme right now that
Gary:they've been the scheme since day one. Come on. I know a lot of artists that actually made a lot of money and, um, you know, good for them. I'll support the artists. Yes. But I mean, as you everybody was like, Wait, this, this can't be real, right. And then everybody just watched it go down, down, down, down, down, down, down. And now you can buy clipart for $10,000.
David:So you said something interesting there, though. Does in order for your smart contract dreams to occur? Does crypto Bitcoin in particular, is what you're mentioning? Does it have to succeed? Can I not do a smart contract for the snickers with dollars?
Tim:Well, I mean, you can do a smart contract with anything. I mean, the point is, is the smart contract is a creation of the block on the blockchain, right? It creates the protocol. And every protocol is different. Right? Ethereum is the base protocol that a lot of forks are coming off of take. Justin son has Tron he's got a couple of things. But Tron is trying to be the quickest executor of contracts and block chaining are building the chain. So that's just one of the things that they're really focusing on its accuracy goes down, but speed goes up. So there's a lot of different things that these blockchains can do. One, the coin itself is again, you remember as a byproduct of building this thing. It's it's not sexy, you all it's the technology that hopefully adds to, I don't know, it kind of jumps us to the next next level and jumps us to the next plane.
Gary:I just had one question though. Okay, so in. In this digital future, what do you see taking more? Taking over first? More blockchain are the metaverse
Tim:Oof. I think the metaverse is novel right now, I think I think it's gonna take a little bit before you're able, you've seen the commercials where a doctor walks into an office and has goggles on and she can see the person's knee after the surgery. That's cute. I'm sure that's available. But that's that's not that's not going to be implemented right away. It's now it's going to be Zuckerberg trying to sell a pair of, you know, some dread for your, your avatar.
Gary:The reason I ask is because both of these technologies like post pandemic came out as this is changing the world and they're moving at the speed of light. And they're both working together, and everything's going to be different and new. And it's great. Everybody hop on board to this new, you know, utopia of digital existence. And then we're just watched the humanity, just kind of keep going, Yeah,
Tim:you got to put a heavy pitch on that know that there's going to be massive failure. And then you can adopt. So I mean, I had a little talk about being an early adopter. And you're gonna have to get those early adopters squeezed out before the majority of people start to really buy into it.
Gary:David said before that, just the the breakthrough technology is the actual secret sauce and the way that it's going to be improved. Moving forward.
David:I think that this is all tied in. I think I've said this before, but Mark Zuckerberg is Metaverse, I believe in 10 years or so we will look back and say he was on to something but he was ahead of his time. Because I think it none of that works. And I don't think any of the I think the blockchain stuff goes counterpart with this because then everything becomes more digital than physical at that point. I mean, we're obviously very digital now. But if I am, if I have these glasses that are technological marvels, which they're coming, they're not anywhere close, but they're coming. I've no doubt that my children will be wearing them, though. They will be my grandchildren's cell phone. Right. You know, it's, that will be a huge, huge thing, while look like we're an optometrist office. And once that happens, I think everything changes and I think blockchain goes along with that, because now I see that guy wearing some cool shoes, I want his shoes. I don't want a copy of those shoes. I want his shoes. Blockchain works really well in that regard. Because now you can change and do that stuff. But I think we got all really excited about it. Just like we're getting excited about AI now, because it's new and more novel and exciting sounding. It's a neat future. or scary one, depending on how you wanna look at it. But the metaverse stuff, I think got just, it ramped up too early. Before we were ready for it. We don't have the hardware needed. The quest two is neat, but I'm not wearing that thing outside of my very closed room where no one can see me because I look like a tool. Do My supernatural all the time my wife walked in me this morning working out there. There's nothing that makes you feel more stupid than someone watching you do supernatural. Oh my gosh,
Gary:well, when they recorded and posted, that's better. But yeah, no one's walking into a coffee shop with the headphones on or the headset on and then pretending they're on five or six virtual screens working. You know,
David:I am curious what Apple's doing waiting for that video. Apple's got something in the works. They're going to be very expensive. They're going to be very high end for what today brings. I am very curious because they are known for they change paradigms. The iPhone was not the first cellphone, right? But it changed the world. The Mac was not the first PC, but it changed the world.
Gary:Even the iPod,
David:the iPod, well, that was the first of its real kind of anything of that when they actually probably invented but unless you wanna call the Walkman, which, you know, rockin that anyway. I'm old.
Tim:Oh, I had it. Well, so I mean,
David:no worries. Did you have a Walkman? Nice. Nice guy. Yeah,
Tim:man. I mean, I'm 44. This was right in my era, right? Gosh,
David:that kills me, man. You're my age and you have all that stellar hair. It just kills me. You and Gary both can just die in a fire.
Gary:I still have boxes of cassettes that I've kept because they mean a lot to me. And believe it or not, now some of them are worth upwards of $6,000 No way.
Tim:Alright, first, quick throwback. What was the first cassette tape that you ever owned? Do you remember it?
Gary:Yeah. Iron Maiden Number of the Beast. All right.
David:Wow, how old were you when you got your tape of Iron Maiden? Strong.
Gary:I think it was like nine or 10 or something. But I remember because there was no way. I remember picking it up from the little cassette rack that was at the end of the store. You know, it was like a tall shelf that's on the wall with little slots. And walking up to my mom and thinking in my head. There's no way she's gonna let me buy this because of the the image on the front of Eddie. Because the name of the album. Yeah. So I was like, Mom, can I have this? And she's like, Yeah, okay. So I'll never forget that's,
David:that's like my parents not realizing that we had Leisure Suit Larry on our old DOS machine. When I was like 10 years old, and they had no idea what it was. Don't tell and so we, you know, my parents put the computer in the solarium which that was just a fancy name for a hallway but with some windows but that it was a very public space and that's where a computer is so whenever my parents would go into the room your gums Leisure Suit Larry on that's probably way too much. But my first cassette I'm guessing it was something Disney related let's be honest, I'll I'm not quite as advanced record
Gary:prior to that because said,
David:Yeah, I remember my brother. My brother was four years older than me, so he always was the music we
Gary:didn't ask. We didn't ask our guests. We haven't finished I
David:haven't asked him yet. What was your first fun I won't answer that's fine. No one cares, whatever.
Tim:I think Leisure Suit Larry was a lot of insight into you anyway. Dave, that was a bit
Gary:learn. Yeah, we were trying to steer away from ya
Tim:know why my first tape that I bought was cool in the gang celebration, thought it was awesome.
Gary:Nice not bad. I
Tim:mean, that's doable. But I will tell you I found Method Man's to cow walking on the sidewalk one day and it turned me on to somebody just had dropped it out there Walkman I picked it up
Gary:the cassette I was referencing the collector's item. I have the original Ray Quan purple tape for Bill funky. Gosh,
David:I'm getting sleeping. I
Gary:mean, Tim can just keep going. David wanted to check out.
David:Oh my gosh, I remember I had a 45 that my my brother I was fascinated by the little bitty one, right? The little record. And it was Spies Like Us with Paul McCartney. And it was for that really bad movie?
Gary:No, that was a great movie. No kidding.
David:We've already established your movie taste is
Tim:bad. Spies Like Us isn't a good movie.
David:There's not a good movie.
Gary:No, David's got the worst taste when it comes to music, comedy movies.
David:Gosh, yeah, you let me Tim do you like zoo lander? Actually, no, I'm
Tim:not as you land refresh.
David:There we go. How about Napoleon Dynamite? Yes.
Tim:Big Napoleon Dynamite friend.
David:All right, fine. I think I'm just gonna let you to talk because
Gary:Welcome to the business podcast with your host Gary and I'm here with my guest.
David:I'm just gonna sign might join us might not my intellectual knowledge is way beyond yours. Your little tiny brains. Alright, fine. Let's talk about finance. Let's talk about something you actually care about. Trade Winds. What do you guys do for a living?
Tim:Trade Winds is a registered firms and investment advisory firms. So it's it's birthed out of the institution of Wells Fargo and why Kobe were started and I wanted to started my own lead my own we do Planning and Investment Management for people.
David:Okay, so you help people with their investments? Is that the cheesy way of boiling it down?
Tim:Yeah, I mean that's that's the hallmark version. Sure, you know we help people get their plans and learn there's a couple of parts that we that reasons why we did it more proud of why we're starting trade winds rather than Tim Whitney financial advisors Wealth Management make you feel good. So
Gary:yeah, what was the passion for the move? What was?
Tim:Yeah, you know, there's a, you know, I started back in oh three with my father, what a great way to, you know, spend time with your dad I 20 years, I got him by my side. So that's really how I got into the business. We never talked baseball or anything or music, and he was a big music head, but we connected in finance and economics. So I had a chance to work with him after college. Found out that I was good when statistics and money management is too big nerves. That nerd was good at it. And I also got the chance to learn from him over that time, with Wako, via cratering and being picked up by Wells Fargo in the crash of seven, eight or nine crash.
David:So okay, so you wanted to do something different now. I might be putting too too fine. A point on this. But when I have so I've had personally horrible luck with financial advisors just bad. And it took me one a long time to realize the difference between a broker or not a broker. That's the wrong term, but a financial manager and a fiduciary, which I didn't know the difference of. Once I found that out. That's like the first thing I asked my people, are you a fiduciary? Because if for those who don't know, that means that they have to by law think of you first rather than they're just a dude who has a has a license of some sort. And they don't have to care about what they could care about the Big Boy generally a lot of the like Ameriprise and those guys, a lot of those are just I don't know their actual term, but their financial advisors, not fiduciaries. Right. Right. And so that that was surprising to me, because I absolutely got taken for a win. Because those guys sell me insurance and all this stuff that I didn't know I needed. Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. But it was all Ameriprise, right. It was all their stuff. They're just making themselves money. And so we long story short, they, I found that they didn't care about me. So that's always brutal. But the other thing is I've noticed is there are people who start with no minimums. But that gets hard right? Now you've got 100 clients that are making, you know, money forever. And 20 years from now, let's say five of them do very, very well, now they've got a portfolio of $2 million. And you're now making, let's say you may have their traditional 1% off of that portfolio, you're making some sweet money off of that. Awesome, you've earned it right? You've worked with them for 20 years. But the risk is now I'm out. I want to go to work on one of these big boys because I got real money now and I'm out the door and you just lost your pay day. So where I see that is a lot of the financial guys I've spoken to over the years. They start with the same ideals you're talking about. But eventually they realized, man, that's a lot of work. I just want the big whales and they're the minimums come back.
Tim:It's right. So the difference between me is that I've already been down that path, gone down, moved up toward the whales had the minimums and then recalibrated and came back came back to what I think is a pure level. First off when we go back that fiduciary standard you're talking about absolutely is a part of this sector when you move out on the internal side is called suitability standard, which is just a way to wire around that fiduciary responsibility. And again, that's that nasty little culture that you don't see on the street. And that we can leave a nasty little taste in your mouth when something happens they recommend an Ameriprise product but it's suitable for you rather than your best interest. Right? Then that's true you're going to eventually money's going to probably win. But think about it. I mean if we're if you're building a culture so I'm trying to be the Saturday Night Live of the Ri ra side bringing the young talent bringing the young creativity you know you know have them work with what's happening in the culture future proof the business or at least my business if others fail that's on you. But if if the smaller accounts stay small you keep bringing younger people in or young people in to still work and service and learn and grow with these people. Right? But you're you're playing the long game. You know, we take David we take you and you start saving money over time and you become the multimillionaire then yeah, we get paid for our for our work with you.
David:And you should that's huge risk right you've done this you've you've done well by me right? You've made me a million dollars. By the way he's not my friend. antral guide case anybody was wondering, but let's say you did you did work really sounds like I'm pitching you, but you say you've done really well. But if I'm a scuzzy ball, like you've worked hard, and you've done well with my money, and it's now worth 2 million bucks, or whatever, you're, there's now the risk is on you, not me, right? Because I could just pick up and move.
Tim:Sure. You could write code for somebody, you could develop this huge code system. And then somebody either swipes it and goes somewhere else, or they say, you appreciate all the development you've done. I'm going over here, because they're, you know, $1, cheaper.
David:But the difference is, I've made money the whole time. You've made pennies the whole time, until Bammo, I make it finally really good money, right? You put up with me when I was making you $200 a year, right? That's it, my finance guy is the same way like I've been bringing him. He's a young guy. And, and he's has no minimums, or any of that stuff. And so we're bringing in, I'm referring people to him who have just starting. And so he's making, you know, 20 bucks, because they've got a portfolio that they just started, it's got$3,000, right. And so that's where I'd like he's making pennies, you're investing in that I if I'm developing for you, I'm making money from day one, if you leave sure the gravy, train stops. But at least I made money while I worked for you, you're still giving me the same amount of effort for that 20 bucks, I was like, man, it's a rough business.
Tim:I mean, you're gonna smoke out the jerks. I mean, you'll just smoke them out. I mean, sure, that's the cost of doing business. But for every person that does that will move 10 of them are going to stay with you, because you've been with them, while they're, quote unquote poor or whether, quote unquote, uneducated, if you're a learning system with them, more than likely, people are going to feel a little loyalty. It's not, it's not honor amongst thieves. I mean, it's, you're gonna have the outlier and hopefully smoke them out before, you know, they waste a lot of your time. But, you know, it's the part of the business call center.
Gary:And I would assume to, like you mentioned, bringing in the younger customers and clients and ones that don't have a huge amount of money to invest right away or to give to you to invest right away. But just taking out the scuzzy Enos that you referred to, and just kind of immediately showing them trust and confidence, and then making sure that remains over the course of a year, two years, three years. I mean, just those two things alone, trusting confidence in your financial life, I think that's definitely going to be like a very strong hook to keep in them and probably going to develop that loyalty.
Tim:That's right. And again, I'm a, I'm a veteran since 2003. It's not like, you know, I don't have a $20 million dollar account that I can't handle those kinds of assets. Also, the the range is there, the comp, that complexity is there. But again, I'm also talking about bringing in the advisors or the groups that are that are young and starting off as well. So those advisors are also going to be learning and building up their practice over 20 years. It's a it's a long game business, it really is. And so the expectation is I'm no longer managing this and in 20 years, and somebody else's Chief Executive Officer trade winds, or there's a board running it, right, and it's got multiple multiple advisors. That's the point. It's not the Tim Whitney trade winds group. Right? It's trade.
David:So I'm gonna take a hard turn good. All right, because I always try to bring the podcast back to talk to the business owners or striving business owners, not necessarily the finance nerds, right? They're probably not listening to this podcast. But what I want to make sure how do we expand this to talk about business in general? How do we take your knowledge, like if I am an aspiring person running bids, now you're running into these people? I'm guessing a lot of your clients are like this, where they are aspiring entrepreneurs and that kind of thing. But what in your business do you think would expand to anyone? And I'm not asking the question yet, by the way. But how do you expand this to encompass to anybody who's, you're running a company, you're starting, you went through the slog that we talked about finding now, I'm guessing you borrowed and brought over clients when you left, so you have an advantage there. But you went through the slog, you started a business, you took that risk, all of that was true. So how is that different in your experience? And how do you advise other people again, who are in the middle of those struggles?
Tim:Yes, I did. I did come over and had some instant revenue there too. So mine is unique, obviously, but yes, all of the other parts and the building blocks are very, very real. The things that are unforeseen, the quote unquote hurdles, and I do in my business, see a lot of people looking to start up and you can you can see a lot of it now is I want to be a real estate agent or I want to get into ownership. Property and will be rental property. And that's just because it's the hot time that will that will quickly you know, burn out. The word of advice on the caution side is know your numbers really take a real reality check there's there's nothing more difficult than for somebody to come in and meet with me and my team. And we find out that you're projecting 50 $60,000 of revenue coming in and you have no skill set, you have no connectivity with it, you don't have any lending. And yet you've got this forecast on what your revenue is going to be, you really need to know your numbers. And that's a that's a big deal to build off of. I would say the other side of that is, you know, me personally, I'm just a manifester, by nature. I knew I wanted to do this, I wanted to build this business, I had issues with the industry that I was working in. And I put that out there 567 years ago, and it's just one of my kind of, I don't know, universal superpowers, I just like to manifest and they tend to come true. I just keep putting it out there. But for business owners, I would say manifest. Just because your numbers may not show it doesn't mean that thing is squashed. You know, think about it, write it down, push yourself, ask around a lot of people. There's nothing wrong with taking a good college try or a good leap. But I would say fundamentally know your numbers first. Does that answer your question?
David:Yeah, I think that's great. Yeah.
Gary:I have a question too. This is more about marketing in general. So you did come over with some clients, and you kind of had that you built it from there? Are you at a point now where you're still needing to do a lot of networking and reaching out and trying to acquire new business? Or are you kind of what David calls in a stage where you've had you have your own gravity and word of mouth and networking and clients can bring more clients to you?
Tim:There's a natural gravity that comes with 20 years, you know, there is that? So I don't have to work as hard. It's not the right word. I don't have to be the ask for referrals. But absolutely,
Gary:you're not worried about doing cold calls and stuff like
Tim:that. No, but I am stepping into a very, very uncomfortable place in my life, too. I again, with this move, I said, I challenged myself I did a TED Talk stood on stage, just ready to fumble my words and hit the wall. I you know, I'm on a podcast. And quite honestly, a horrific public speaker, or at least my hands are sweating constantly. You know, but I'm stepping into an uncomfortable spot in my life. And I going to continue to do that. I hired a guy, Mike. And Mike gets us out there. He's our marketing person. He's putting us on LinkedIn, he's connecting us with people, he's making sure that voice and pictures and things are being seen. So we still want to market it. In the reality you all I don't want to be a small Ria, that broke out from institutions, and then fall off into the sunset, I've got bigger dreams, man, I've got aspirations and goals. And, you know, we're going to try to change the face of the business, we already hit it in the mouth once just by creating trade winds, and I want to keep going after it. And I think a lot of advisors and a lot of people feel that these days, the institutionalized world is, it's really nasty.
David:You know, it's we're speaking of finance, and investments and stuff like that. And I want to wrap back around that. Yeah, I think there's a another point to be made there. But I think if I were a small business owner, or want to be small business owner, and I'm listening to this podcast, and you're like, what does this have to do with me? I think the best thing you can take out of this is if you hear Tim's passion, and you don't hear that in your own voice, you probably need to rethink some stuff, because that's what a founder sounds like. They trip over themselves, because they're so excited to do whatever it is they're doing, whether it's finance or building websites, or street cleaning, it doesn't matter. But that's I think the common denominator of everybody we are interviewing is, it's funny, because we've been doing this long enough now that some of the people we talked to don't have that. You can hear it in their voice. This is becoming drudgery. Even though it's a new company, right there. They're living their dream, but me and Gary, you know, we talk privately after the cameras turned off and we're like, huh, he's not really into that or she's not really into that. I mean, it happens right so it's interesting so I mean, if you want to if you are listening to this you got this doesn't pertain to me. Ignore his words for a moment. Just feel that because he's in this this is
Gary:will ignore the topic of finance, but listen to the way he's saying these words. Yeah. When you when you said punch the industry in the face and keep going, like, that hits me completely. Because yeah, I too, was a reluctant corporate stooge for quite a while and then, you know, and I've made him one again, knocked out of that? Well, no, no, actually, I mean, truth be told the reason why I love being part of big pixel is because it is nothing like that. Yeah.
David:This gets because I have no idea what I'm doing.
Tim:Well, I mean, that's a lot of the fun though, right? I mean, the law, and I appreciate you saying that I truly do that really reinforces this part. But being able to break out and not have to play by the rules of the company, you get to make your own rules a little bit, and you're gonna make mistakes, but now we can, what a creative way to make mistakes, we can go try. And I would say one of the other parts. For me personally, as I know, my limitations are my shortcomings. And you got to hire the power players for your shortcomings. You know, you have to hire those that can keep you in check and accountable and keep your integrity there. But then also, you have to give them the creativity to grow and do those fun things. So Gary, I love that for you. I love that you left and corporate stooge. I'm glad it's a funny thing to say. But sometimes you feel like that you're going I'm, I'm an adult, I'm a grown up, man. Like, why am I having to do this? Why Am I answering to this department who doesn't know me. And now
Gary:you get to go out there all the while knowing you're just a number on a spreadsheet and someone, someone's larger picture that's right.
David:Here, you're just number 32748. Desk four. So I don't know what's really changed dash three,
Gary:you don't even know my number.
David:It's true, because you're unimportant. What I do want to a brilliant. We're not even a corporation, we're an LLC. Anyway. I guess that is a Corporation Limited liability. All right, shut up. Bring it back. Bring it back, bring it back. So one thing I do want to talk about that is finance that is important. And that's interesting, I don't think I don't know if we talked about this before. But if we have So, alright, one of the things that really, so for lots of way too much information. Retirement has become very personal to me, when I'm getting older, but to in my family, it has not been for a lot of our family members a big deal. And so I made it a personal bugaboo, for lack of a better term, there's got to be a better term. And I made, we did a simple IRA, because we're too tiny. But I have encouraged and pushed and prodded all of my people to, to invest and think about retirement, and a lot of them had never thought about it in their life. And these are not right out of college people. They're in the 30s. And I was like, Don't be me, I didn't think about retirement seriously until I was over 40, don't be me. And so I'm trying to use that. And I think any business owner, if you're doing it, right, the reason I'm bringing this up is if you're doing and you're in least in my mind, if you're doing it right, you're thinking about your people, right, and you're thinking about your people not running the business shouldn't be an epic exercise of getting you rich. And that's a side effect sometimes. But that shouldn't be the goal, your goal should be to bring up a lot of people, and help a lot of people, whether that's your clients or your your employees, or whatever. So as part of that, you need to be thinking about their retirement, if you have employees, you need to think about the retirement because they're probably not. And you're the old person in the room, theoretically, quote, unquote, right? And you're the responsible one, and you have an ability as a business owner, to set up something like a simple IRA or 401 K or whatever you want to call it. And do matching and really help them along their their thing. And if you want to show people you care, I don't care how big you are. That simple IRA costs almost nothing to run a 401 k gets pricey. That's why we don't have one but but that simple IRA costs almost nothing. So do it. Like if if you have employees do it, that's all I can say. off my soapbox.
Tim:I'll pivot off of that though. But I mean, as a leader, if you're going to start a company, or you're going to be a leader, that's that's the price of being a leader. I mean, if you're going to be open, starting a company and employing people, you better just get that in your head that you've got to protect them. You've got families to protect, you've got retirements, protect and you better not mess it up there, you'll you will mess it up. I've messed it up. But you have to quickly pivot and make sure that you're doing this for the right reasons. And that's just that's the, that's the cost of being a leader. You got a target on your chest and when you mess up, you're gonna take the arrow, and you're not allowed to complain up because you are the right means everybody's talking to and then stops with you know, that's that's just what happens when you're a leader and you better have good intentions for your people. I mean, I agree with you, David.
David:Well, on that happy note, Gary, given the question.
Gary:All right, Tim. So we ask it every one of our guests this now, finance or not, doesn't really matter because you are a business owner. So we wanted to know what your top three pieces of advice would be for any new business owner, entrepreneur or startup?
Tim:Yeah, I would say we already touched on it. So the biggest one I think is have your passion. First. You just speak passionate. I mean, I'm sure that's cliche, but it really is because it'll get you through the dark times, it'll get you through the times when you're tripping out in the shower or when you're thinking alone or right before you go to bed or driving, you know, what's going to be that driver for some passion First, money is second money will be a byproduct. So that's, that's big. You'll be tempted to do everything you'd be quite tempted to do at all human resources, finance, operations, marketing, and sales, you'll have to, you'll have to be able to know to speak those different languages, throw the different hats on, but you can't be a controlling entity on all of those parts that are crushing you. You know, I would say, take very, very smart people smarter than you, if you can find them. And they're out there and then empower them to go. So don't wear every hat, you'll be tempted to but don't. The last one is to absolutely dream as big as you can. Why sell yourself short? You know what I mean? My dad, he always used to say, that's when I would bring home CDs. And when I was in school, and he would say Tim would use study for the a plus. So when you inevitably screw up and you get a B or a B plus, you're doing well if you study for the B plus, and you get a C minus. There's your problem. Right? So dream as big as you can, you know, shoot for the billion dollars. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be a billionaire. So when you don't, you know, you're still very, very good. Well off. Does that make sense?
Gary:Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. You touched on some, you know, the passion and then not wearing all the hats and knowing you know, when to hire someone that knows more, or don't pretend to be the expert and everything like that's a reoccurring theme that we see coming up quite often, or I should say, we we hear coming up quite often with a lot of our guests. So yeah, be an expert in something though. Yes, yeah. But you can't you cannot be the expert of everything, especially if you're growing.
Tim:That's right. And people are gonna read through that. I mean, anybody anybody would. But this has been extra. This has been interesting here. It's been fun.
David:If anyone wanted to reach out, but what, Gary, Shut up, man, what? No, we're
Gary:trying to get you out of this means.
Tim:David's pitching me. Hold on one sec. Go ahead.
David:Try No, I'm trying to No, I'll pitch you later. That's if no, I was doing I was wrapping it up.
Gary:See how anybody who wants to know more about Tim and trade winds can find out. So
David:that was what I was doing before I was rudely interrupted. So how would they get in touch with you, Tim?
Tim:LinkedIn is really a great way. I mean, LinkedIn is fun. I think it's a really cool way to meet people and talk, you kind of keep a little level of anonymity. So reach out to me on LinkedIn, follow me on that. I don't have Twitter. You can probably follow Mike manga, nila, he's our sales and marketing guy too. But if you want to find out more about the firm and the company and what we're doing, just go to trade winds dot global. That's our website. And we're really excited about what we're doing. We've got a lot, a lot of plans for the future. Crypto was one of them, we're really going to be partnering up with a company Eagle Brook advisors and they specialize in this part. So we're going to connect to crypto, we're not going to sell it. We're going to just educate around it and have the ability Speaking of not being experts, so we're going to turn those over to the experts and then work with clients for two so
David:he's gonna mend his own coin. I'm already on it. I'm on to you. The tin.
Gary:Yeah. Alright, so we will add those links in our show notes, and we will have them everywhere this podcast is published. And if anybody wants to reach out to us ask us questions or leave any comments below this video. You can do that on YouTube, you can email us at Hello at the big pixel.net or you can reach out to any one of our social media channels even Tik Tok before it's banned.
David:Hey, and before, nice. One last thing that we don't normally do. But if you are enjoying our podcast, don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast app. And if you use Apple podcasts, which most of you do, I know who you are not as good. But at present most of the people who do listen to us use Apple leave us a review because that really matters. And it's really helpful. So it doesn't have to put words in it. I like when you say nice things. But you know look five star helps. So anyway,
Tim:and also Leon the comment lead the first cassette tape that you ever picked up what was your first vinyl cassette tape or maybe the first song on your iPod? I'd be interested in that.
David:Depending on alrighty, everybody, thank you so much for joining us, Tim. There's been a lot of fun.
Tim:Yeah, thank you gentlemen. That was much appreciated having me on your show.
Gary:All right. On that note, then we will see you guys next week. See you