You Can't Afford Me
You Can't Afford Me
From Investment Banking to Bowling Alleys: Rob Long's Entrepreneurial Journey
What does it really take to walk away from corporate security and build a multi-million dollar business from scratch? Rob Long's journey from self-described "world's worst investment banking analyst" to successful entrepreneur offers a masterclass in calculated risk-taking.
When Rob quit his banking job in 2017, he had just $15,000 in savings and a vision for River City Roll, an upscale bowling alley that would require $6 million to build. Most people would call this insanity. Rob calls it opportunity. With remarkable candor, he shares how he leveraged investor psychology to raise millions in a single night, using the power of FOMO in a room full of potential backers who didn't want to miss out on what everyone else was funding.
Rob's comfort with debt and using other people's money – skills honed during his banking days – enabled him to build at a scale impossible through bootstrapping alone. But his entrepreneurial story doesn't stop at hospitality. Following the COVID-19 challenges that nearly derailed his expansion plans, Rob pivoted into tech with Surf, a revolutionary dating app described as "Zillow for dating." Unlike traditional swipe-based apps, Surf uses a filterable grid system allowing users to find potential matches based on specific criteria they truly care about.
Beyond business insights, Rob opens up about fatherhood, revealing how the birth of his daughter during COVID's darkest days gave him new purpose when his business was forced to close. His hilarious, unfiltered story of being intoxicated when his wife went into unexpected labor showcases the chaotic reality entrepreneurs face when balancing business ambitions with family life.
Whether you're contemplating your own entrepreneurial leap, seeking innovative fundraising approaches, or simply curious about the unvarnished truth behind business success, this conversation delivers practical wisdom wrapped in compelling storytelling. Download this episode now and discover why sometimes the most unconventional paths lead to the most rewarding destinations.
www.themrpreneur.com
Welcome to the you Can't Afford Me podcast, where we skip the fluff and dive straight into the ground Real entrepreneurs, real struggles and the unfiltered journey behind success. Let's get into it, hey guys. Thanks for coming to another episode of the you Can't Afford Me podcast. So one thing I love about doing this podcast is sometimes I get to meet and talk to people that I don't know in everyday life and came across this guy.
Speaker 1:I was like man, this is somebody I got to sit down and chat with. So today I'm sitting with Rob Long. Rob, how you doing today, buddy, doing great. How are you Awesome, man. So first give everybody like a quick 30 second spiel about who you are, what you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, born and raised here in Richmond, virginia, after college I had a brief stint in investment banking. My boss jokes that I was the world's worst investment banking analyst Super ADD and dyslexic which can kind of be my superpower in my new arena but as an investment banking analyst, I was terrible when I moved back to richmond in 2017 where were you living when you were doing boston?
Speaker 2:okay, so I was boston charlotte and a brief stint in texas, gotcha and uh moved back home and it had enough with corporate america and uh quit my job. And then to 2017 and and started building river city roll nice and that was kind of my, my uh first step into the entrepreneurial world, gotcha all right, so a lot to unpack there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so first, uh, like what brought you back to richmond, because from boston to, I mean, the huge sports scene up there, so like that's got a lot of sports, uh, that was the best part about boston. It's so freaking cold I I was about to say the weather is probably what I couldn't do there even my dog didn't want to go outside I was like this is this isn't it.
Speaker 2:Um, I love richmond and I'm you know I'm glad I left uh and got to experience some other things and you know the river city role model came from my experience at similar places in bigger cities and, just you know, in my early 20s, single, nothing to do, like we started every night at the bowling alley pictures of beers hanging out before going out and, um, you know, I'm so glad that I got out and got to experience it, but I always wanted to come back to richmond.
Speaker 2:Um, richmond, you know, that I came back to was so different than growing up here and it's even more different today. I think that it's a really cool place to be and an incredible place to raise a family.
Speaker 1:Oh, for sure.
Speaker 2:And I knew I'd always be back. I didn't think it would be that soon, but the timing worked out.
Speaker 1:Gotcha. So talk to us about that transition from corporate America to being an entrepreneur, because I talk to people all the time where it's it's never this perfect picture thing where it's like oh, I'm gonna start this little side hustle. Now, the side hustle, I'm making three times as more as I am during my day job, so obviously it makes sense for me to quit my day job. What was that transition like for you?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I'd love to know the side hustles that are making three times the day jobs. That was the river city roll start, was not that? Yep, um, you know, luckily I was young and dumb enough to to walk away from a steady paycheck and things like health care and stuff that you, you know, kind of take for granted in corporate america. You know 401k, matching and all this stuff that, like in my 20s, I didn't really care about.
Speaker 1:But now, with family and kids, I'm like I'm not worried about 40, 50 years down the road like, yeah, I was like what am?
Speaker 2:I saving for I think like when I quit I think I had 15 000 in the bank. I could paid off my car, I think, had a tv and a couch and the cookie factory lofts in scott's edition and, um, you know the idea for river city roll. I I always wanted to open a bar. Even back in college I went to uva and always tried to work, you know, on the corner at bars and kind of be in the scene and and I knew I always wanted to do it. Um, you know, everyone knows about one in three restaurants fail right, and the beauty of a River City role concept is you add that third revenue stream with bowling.
Speaker 2:I'm kind of getting ahead of myself a little here, but I knew I wanted to do it. The parking lot behind where I was living was kind of overgrown. You know, obviously Scott's edition was hot back then not as hot as it is now. You know I kind of joke that we got in there in about the third inning I think it's probably, you know, fifth or sixth inning now and there was a for lease kind of sign that had been kind of grown over. I don't think the developers had really put a lot of thought to that parking lot and I, you know, I'll admit here publicly for the first time my last, probably six months on my job at BB&T Capital Markets.
Speaker 2:Looked like I was working late nights but all I was doing was River City role planning and modeling and I had, I took, you know, all the money I had in my name, put it into the kind of initial architectural drawings and kind of the pitch deck and like the concepting. And you know, I remember when I called my parents and told them I was quitting my job and typical parents are like, wait, you quit your good job. You know good job is so yes, it's such a dumb term.
Speaker 1:Wait, did your mom say what my mom said? The first thing my mom said when I told her I was quitting my good job and becoming an entrepreneur, she said the first thing out of her mouth was well, what about your health care? I was like working for somebody else at a job that I hate is bad for my health.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly. It's like what part of health care are you talking?
Speaker 1:about Like my mental health.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, pretty much the same spiel. He just gave me permission to play him spiel and it was like you know, I was fortunate enough to have my parents help me with my education and you know, I did get a little bit of that Like, hey, you know, you're on your own buddy. Yeah, you know, and that's fine. I like a little pressure. And I even remember the developer. One of the people working for the development team was like he hadn't known I'd quit my job yet. And you know, river City Roll is a $6 million project. I needed to raise $3 million and then the bank was going to give me the other three and this guy, who I'll remain nameless, was probably more worried about it than I was, clearly, and he was like this is risky, don't quit your job. And I was like I quit last week. He was like what the? And I was like, yeah, he's like, dude, you're crazy. And I was like maybe you got to be the thing. I told everyone was like if I want to go back to a pretty nondescript banking?
Speaker 1:job, I can go back.
Speaker 2:You to a pretty nondescript banking job. You can always find that. I can go back, you can always find that. And I was lucky enough at the time to be single and not really have any bills and not really no one was counting on me in terms of income. So it was like I was, you know, 27 years old, single guy living pretty lean. You know I had my apartment bill and that's about it, yep.
Speaker 2:And yeah, so it's funny she changed her tune, though quick like the first, uh, the first article I did with me and my partner, ben eubanks. Uh, you know, we ended up luckily being on the front page of the richmond times above the above the fold and uh, which is hilarious. I never knew that term but, as soon as there was a little bit of press, my mom thought it was the greatest idea ever I'm so proud we haven't made a freaking penny or any built anything yet, but I'm glad all it took was a little ink for you to change your tune on this so talk to me about because your every business.
Speaker 1:Up to this point, I think I've started nine or ten businesses. That's awesome all from the ground up, which I've been saying. I'll probably never do that again. Moving forward, I do want to own more businesses, but I'll probably buy an existing business versus starting something from scratch. So I've never had anything, all my businesses what's that term?
Speaker 2:what's that term? It's kind of a buzz term now the serial entrepreneur. No, no, the purchasing, the god. I see it on linkedin all the time. I feel like the entrepreneur by purchase or kind of my girl, cody sanchez.
Speaker 1:She's probably my favorite entrepreneur in the world right now. She's like the female version of gary v um. Her whole model is showing you how to buy, like existing businesses and this big wealth of transfer entrepreneur byur by acquisition. Okay, I hadn't heard that before. So with opening up like a physical building, obviously going from like a good paying job to like cashing out and having 15K in the bank. Which went to zero in a day.
Speaker 2:Really zero.
Speaker 1:So having little to no money and seeing that this project was going to cost you $6 million, first off that jump from corporate America to entrepreneurship and to go from entrepreneurship to looking at debt.
Speaker 2:That way, I've had to kind of readjust my brain in terms of everything I've built up to this point has just been from the ground up.
Speaker 1:This past year was the first time I've used OPM, other people's money, and it was one of the best decisions I've made, because I realized I can't truly scale this business up to the way I want it if I'm not using other people's money.
Speaker 2:So what was the?
Speaker 1:thought process. Was there shock involved in that when, you like, found out how much it was going to be to put something like this together?
Speaker 2:I kind of knew and you know I didn't really have a choice I had to go the OPM route, had to use other people's money because I didn't have any. You know, the beauty of my corporate job was that I was on the debt side of investment banking so I had kind of become numb to leverage in the debt because I did it so often.
Speaker 1:You got to educate, you got to pay to education.
Speaker 2:Right and I knew Now, granted, I was working with big companies, right, like Fortune 500 companies, and they all have debt, right, and it's just kind of like I just kind of Debt never scared me, you know it's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you were like. These guys are taking down $200 million.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did a $500 million bond deal for these guys Everyone does debt right? You talk to my pops and if he has $5 of debt he's freaking out. So I was always kind of numb to that piece of it. I think the beauty of Richmond and I think maybe people from other towns will say this too, but I live in a lot of places and Richmond is so supportive of young Richmonders trying to do something cool Absolutely, and I did have that as an advantage of being from here.
Speaker 2:I also coach high school lacrosse at Freeman High School and I have a lot of you know I work with a lot of people and I knew I had a couple in my back pocket that were going to support me with dollars and you know, and the first check's always the hardest, and I found that I'm giving away some of my fundraising secrets here but, FOMO is a real thing for people that have money, that they're investing, and I've found my most success to date is getting people in a room with a plug or two in the room that you know is a yes, yep, and then putting their hand up in a group of people that all could invest, and then people start thinking more about the upside scenario, not the downside if that makes any sense and it's oh man, I don't want Chris to get in and then miss out, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:So I remember, like the River City Roll, first big raise we did was at Ardent and we had the back room. At Ardent, having some booze and people always helps a little bit too.
Speaker 1:Oh, a thousand percent. Got to get them liquored up. Got to have a couple beers in them.
Speaker 2:And you know, we knew we had some yeses in the room and, um, you know, I think that night we raised over half of the three million we needed to raise on the equity side and it was all that kind of just like herd mentality, like group think. Like he's doing it, I'll do it. I don't want to miss out you do it, I'm doing it all right and everyone just kind of did it, which was great.
Speaker 2:Um and once you do it once successfully you earn a little bit of trust and the next one gets a little easier. The pressure never changes, though. The one thing about other people's money, especially when you do friends and family type raise, is the personal part of it. Right, and I'm a competitive guy. I kind of like that fire some people don't. Um, you know, the bank money's easy to kind of you don't have any emotional tie to it. Right, it's like whatever.
Speaker 1:It seems like monopoly money but if your family sees you wearing a new pair of jordans and you owe them half a million dollars, like my wife would be cracking up right now if she were to talk about shoes.
Speaker 2:It's kind of my problem. Big sneaker guy too Big sneaker guy Dude, I just sold off my whole collection.
Speaker 1:before I moved to this office I had 150 pair I sold off.
Speaker 2:Don't tell me you're a 10 and a half.
Speaker 1:I am a 10 and a half dude, Gosh. I had to get a kid in Atlanta to. I had to ship him out to somebody in Atlanta to get the whole collection. Kix Booman couldn't do it. No, they were lowballing the hell out of me. I was like I'm not only a businessman, but I'm a hardcore sneakerhead. I know the value of what I have.
Speaker 2:I know what this is. I'm not just giving it away, yeah, yeah yeah, no, I hear that.
Speaker 1:I hear that, like six months ago, man, we could have made a deal.
Speaker 2:My wife kind of gives me a hard time sometimes about it, but I joke with her that most of my sneakers are less than $150. I'm not buying them aftermarket, right. Oh, no, no, no, if I hit on the sneakers app, I take them and if not, I try again.
Speaker 2:Not paying $1,000 on resale. No, I'm not paying $1,000 for shoes. That's crazy. That $5,000 for shoes, that's crazy, that's crazy, that's crazy. But yeah, no, it's funny about that, like it's true and it's like you see these people that invest with you all the time and the day. We got our Class C investors paid off at River City Roll it was a great day.
Speaker 2:That ended up taking five and a half years. I kind of give myself a little cred. For the COVID it was really hard. You know. Two-year pause, so, like you know, we kind of projected to be a three-year payback and ended up being close to double that. But we did have the COVID curveball thrown our way.
Speaker 1:So and what was the percentage for investors? Five to 15% return, somewhere in that range.
Speaker 2:That's what we're gunning for and we did it. We structured our raises. Convertible note I think it was 3%, pretty small coupon on it, but it converted when paid back and so they're still equity owners today and I think that there'll be a big catch up, the way scott's edition's been, if I think, the real kind of big payday for for river city role investors is the day that it goes away, unfortunately yeah gotcha, which I don't plan on that happening anytime soon, because it it does.
Speaker 2:Well, it's an awesome community place. Um, I love bringing people together more than a couple million bucks and I don't say that because I'm numb to a couple million bucks I don't have a million bucks yet, but I'm not ready to let 12 stories of apartments replace River City Roll anytime soon. But the return number should catch up the day that happens.
Speaker 1:So on that note though because this is something I didn't really give the mental bandwidth I should have years ago thinking about my exit Now I'm in no way shape or form thinking about selling off my media firm in the next couple of years, but as entrepreneurs, that is something that we have to think of, whether it's further down the line you talk about. You know the FOMO of those investors, like. I saw a post the other day. It showed the returns for everybody who originally invested in Uber and there were people that put in $5,000 as an investment and their return was like $25 million, and ones that were like $50,000 investors. They made like $75 to $100 million. Like ridiculous. Now, obviously, I would have never had an opportunity to invest in Uber, but just seeing that I'm like man five thousand dollars like you're telling me I could make 25 mil.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm in on that. Yeah, yeah, the exit strategy. You know it's um. When we were thinking about it early on, um pre-covid mindset, my mind was very different. Um, so you thought about this like early on yeah, yeah, no.
Speaker 2:Pre-raise, because when you are raising money from folks, you want to show kind of all avenues to success, right, and hey, the operating business could be this, and if we get to where we think your return is going to be high teens, low 20s and we can run it as long as we're cool, yeah, but also smart enough to know that no one in the hospitality space is the coolest for forever. Like, there's a shelf life, right, and there's always people with new and cooler ideas. As cool as I think River City Roll is, there will be someone that catches this at some point, right, so you always want to be ahead of that. It's okay if River City Roll doesn't work as we think it's going to work.
Speaker 2:Here's our pivot, yeah, you know cool office space like your own or apartments, right, so we had like downside change, then it's okay. Exit strategy one is this works like we think we're going to open five of these. You know, when you get to three to five units in in the in the kind of entertainment space where we play it's, it's when you start becoming an acquisition target. Reason I mentioned COVID is because that was our thought pre COVID. Covid beat me up pretty good mentally and you know we haven't opened any more bowling alleys.
Speaker 2:I was actually in Raleigh the day Governor Northam texted me that the state was about to close and we were at the table with a prominent real estate guy in Raleigh about to buy a building for River Street World 2 in Raleigh and thank God I got the text yes, because that would have been a disaster. Yeah, and I just said hey, I'm really sorry I can't in good faith sign this LOI knowing that my only concept is about to be forced to be closed for who knows what's going to happen. Yep, I hate that we missed on that because Raleigh is such a cool market, a lot of similarities to Richmond.
Speaker 1:I think that's in the top 20 cities, like fastest rolling cities.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think River City role model would smash there If I wasn't so beaten up by COVID and the F&B. My focus would probably still be on bowling alleys and not on apps.
Speaker 1:But that was uh so nice little, nice little pivot there. You could you, maybe you could be hosting this nice little pivot there. So yeah, I wanted to jump into that. So, uh, you started a dating app what's the name of the app? Surf surf and you started this like three months ago.
Speaker 2:So no, so we have been live on the App Store for 18 months.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Our current version. Part of that time was kind of our beta version. The footwork we're happy to have forward now is live. It's been live since October of last year.
Speaker 1:Okay, so obviously a big transition If people look at my career and what I've done in business and think like man, these things are so disconnected Like the first business I ever started was. Richmond Bubble Soccer. You put on those huge bubble suits and play full contact soccer.
Speaker 1:So we had that for like seven, eight years or something like that, and then I started a valet laundry service, then I had a media company, then I got into vending machines and I got into public speaking and all these different things and some people I would talk to be like man. It seems like you're just all over the place, like none of these things are connected, but in my head there was a plan and these things were ultimately connected. So somebody can hear that and be like man.
Speaker 1:This guy went from restaurants and bowling alleys to software development, like. So what brought that about?
Speaker 2:What made you say like hey, I need to get into this space. Yeah, so you know, I kind of cut my teeth with river city roll and bar west, which we haven't spent a ton of time on bar west yet. But, um, I love bar west on grove avenue here in the near west end. You know, elevated uh, sports bars probably the easiest way to describe it but a nice new american menu where anyone with any sort of taste can come and have and find something that they want to eat and feel good about putting in their body and create cocktails and just an awesome place. But, um, you know, full disclosure, surf, the kind of origin story of surf. I was not the true creator of it. A good friend of mine who is more of a numbers tech person, yeah, uh, was an early investor in grinder.
Speaker 1:Um, which I just saw the return on grinder, like I just saw.
Speaker 2:Let's just say it was a not quite uber dollars yeah, no, no, no, pretty pretty close yeah, the returns on that have been massive and nobody talks about that and no one talks about it, and my good buddy was at the time early 30s, successful, had a nice financial outcome with that and learned a lot about how it was built. From a tech side of things, grindr is different from most apps that people know about Hinge, bumble, raya, the League, all these swipe-based apps right.
Speaker 2:Kind of more of a gamified hot or not. Swiping Grindr's a grid, and the grid is just way more efficient in terms of finding a match.
Speaker 1:Meaning there are multiple people up on screen at one time. Everyone is there.
Speaker 2:There's no algorithm picking the order of what pops up. Wow, there's no time picking the order of what pops up. Wow, there's no time wasted swiping. Um, everyone's on the grid and you can kind of sort and filter the grid, um so so that kind of like uh, plenty of fish.
Speaker 1:That was like the only dating app I was ever on before I met my wife.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was kind of like I could like put criteria a little bit yeah kind of a no, knock on plenty of fish kind of a just a better version. Yeah, tech wise of Fish, kind of just a better version. Tech-wise, plenty of Fish was pretty bare bones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll say it, I'm not in that tech space.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, they were close on the concept.
Speaker 2:But, essentially was like hey, I'm sick of swiping, I'm going to get the stat wrong, but it's something like 800 swipes to find a match on the traditional In terms of just like time, it's so inefficient, right. And it was like I'm gonna build a straight focus version of grinder, essentially, and we're gonna take learnings from that tech, make it better and bring grid dating to the straight space first, and then, obviously, we're gonna open it up to everyone because you know and this will kind of tie back to why I don't think it's that far of a stretch from River City, roll and Bar West to this now, given me being the CEO of the app and co-founders Okay, we have this product. We have an incredible development team in Serbia that's built it. I don't need to know anything about coding.
Speaker 2:The app suite works, it's on, and I have spent the last eight years of my life marketing to 22 to 32 year olds at the bar right, which is our core focus for the app. Yep, so, like everything, all the learnings and stuff that I've been doing promo wise for every city role in bar west matched up perfectly and I got the call. Hey, rob, here's the idea. What do you think? Hell yeah, let's go, I'm in and I think that the minute you see the app and the minute you get on the tech whether you're single, married, whatever, you can just tell it works. And you know, I like to say like the easiest comp is a zillow for dating and man put that on t-shirt yeah, and like it, the cop works for like a million different ways of talking about surf, right?
Speaker 2:not just the physical tech of okay, um, it's a grid with filtering and sorting, just like Zillow and everything's on it. But also, too, each kind of app has a lane that they go in, and I'm not going to define them all because that's not what I'm here to do today. But we don't want to be in a lane. We don't want to tell people how to use Surf. We don't care how you use Surf. We will build a piece of tech that we think is the best, most efficient way to meet someone, for whatever reason you want to meet someone. We're not saying we're a find your wife or husband app. We're not saying a girlfriend or boyfriend app. We're not saying a one night standout. We're saying our tech is just the most efficient way to find what you're looking for.
Speaker 2:Pick it yourself, and that's how Zillow is right. You have a $10 million house in Delray, florida on there, and you have a $200,000 house in the middle of West Virginia on there, or wherever it may be, and people use the tech the same way because it's good and it's efficient, and that's what we want Surf to be where it's good and it's efficient, and you know that's what we want Surf to be where it's. Anyone anywhere can use it however they want to use it, no matter where they are or what league they think they play or not play in. Yeah, it's there. And you know, also, like Zillow, we want to always have a free version that anyone can use at any time. And then you know, we kind of I like to think about like the linkedin model more on on. It is where we'll have a free and then we'll have a paid.
Speaker 2:We're not gonna have nine levels like hinge where it's hinge plus, plus, plus, super plus, and if you pay 200 a month, we'll guarantee that your match count goes up like give me a break. No one wants ai picking stuff like that and fake algorithms feeding you profiles. It's like we want to be fair. We want to be there for everyone. It's free, or $4.99 a week, less than a cup of coffee. You can see every single person you want to see. You can do whatever you want.
Speaker 1:So who are the people that are paying? Is that the person that and? I'm sure there's a mixed bag of that, but like I would assume the person that's looking for a serious relationship looking for their husband and wife. They're the ones that are going to pay for a premium subscription and the ones that are on the free version. It's like ham and dc this weekend.
Speaker 2:Let me look it up and see where I can hook up with this weekend yeah, so I think you know that's going to be one of those ones that we kind of just track over time it's too early to tell, yeah, um, like the kind of composition of what the paying and non-paying looks like, some of the functionality on the app that we have, um, our mutual connectivity function, um, which is really cool, where, uh, like robert jones, like we talked about earlier, if you saw my profile, we would share probably more than just one mutual contact. I had to guess, since guess, since you've been around Richmond for a while too, but at least I know we'd have one and you would see my profile and it would say mutual contacts one, and you could click on it and say Robert Jones. So then if you were to reach out to me and say, hey, rob how do you know, robert?
Speaker 2:Jones, or hey, I used to work with Robert and it's an immediate way to socially verify someone. That's pretty cool. So our female users it's really spoken to them because it's a safety thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I can now trust.
Speaker 2:It's a trust thing. You can easily kind of fact check somebody. Yes, you also can steer clear of exes pretty quick and it's valuable, so that's something that would be part of the paywall.
Speaker 1:That's a paid feature, right, and uh, the free all show your top 100 and then paid where you see everybody on there. Where did? All right, let me let me ask you this, and then I got another question following with that where'd?
Speaker 2:the name come from why surf? Surf the grid ah, smart.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you this is how long you you been married.
Speaker 2:No swiping, start surfing.
Speaker 1:Oh man, Stop swiping.
Speaker 2:Start surfing. How long have you been married? Two, four, oh shit.
Speaker 1:I'm going to get this wrong.
Speaker 2:Live on camera. Kate and I have been together for a long time. We've been married for three years now. I think this will be our third or fourth anniversary this year.
Speaker 1:All right so coming in trouble for that did you. Yeah, me and my wife been married.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, my wife said something the other day this will be our seventh wedding anniversary coming up this year, but I think we've been together like 11 years, something like that. I have a rule since we're talking about dating stuff, let me know what you think of this. Like uh, give me your opinion. I got this advice from mr wonderful from shark tank. He says, whether it's a business or personal relationship, he gives 36 months, and so when I was dating my wife, I probably knew a year and a half definitely two years in that I was going to marry this woman.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you stuck to the rule I.
Speaker 1:Stuck to the rule I said it's going to be 36 months, because if you're going to spend the rest of your life with someone, what the hell is three years Versus these people that are running out and getting married after knowing somebody for six months? It's like you're an idiot. So I've shared that advice. Hopefully one of my boys girl isn't listening to this because he's currently on that trend. He's right at that mark this summer.
Speaker 2:So then that's when the pressure comes in. Yeah, especially if you share that mark with your significant other. Yeah, comes in. Yeah, especially if you share that mark with your significant other. Yeah, well, she, then, you know, shot clock's on.
Speaker 1:Oh no, I did 36 months in a day yeah, I told her well, after we got married like it was a year after we got married I was like you know, I didn't propose to you at this time because I knew she was begging for it. I was like 36 months rule, like because he does the same thing with business, like if he invests in something on shark tank, he'll give it three years before. He's like all right, I've got to wash my hands of this, yeah, as somebody in the dating space. What do you think about that advice?
Speaker 2:Look, I think that it's sound. I think it's sound advice. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone that could think of a counterargument of why that's a bad idea.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Some people have told me it's a bad idea, but I'm like the whole you know, you know thing is kind of fairytale a little bit.
Speaker 1:No, because even in business, like I've hired people that I'm like, oh, this is my next rock star, blah, blah, blah. I'll be real. There were a couple people last week or, yeah, this past weekend I let two people go and they only worked here for two weeks Because I'm of the mindset like, hire slow, fire fast. Yeah, there is no point in me stretching this out, like if this person's identified, they're not the right one for the team.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to continue to pace my plan People I think in job interviews and dating as well are always putting their best foot forward for the first couple weeks. I don't think you can date one. You probably don't learn a whole lot of real yeah. No, Pretty superficial at that point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, real. Yeah, no, pretty superficial at that point. You know, I think the 36 month rule is good for a lot of things, but you know you learn a lot about I'm also kind of not traditionalist, but, like you know, I think you should live with somebody before you marry him too same thing we did, and we did that, and you learn a lot about somebody when you live with them yeah, I had to have that from my parents.
Speaker 1:My dad was a pastor since the day I was born, so I kept that under wraps for my parents for a little bit, but it's like yeah you got to test those things out because it's like, is somebody going to flip out if I leave my underwear on the floor? Like those are things that you got to learn about a partner.
Speaker 2:And, like we, you know not to tie it back to surf If you search the grid by things you care about and let's say you put in a few inputs where it's lives in. Virginia likes pickleball, wine and golf for example and then the only profiles that pop up are someone that matches those criteria. So you know, you have those things in common right.
Speaker 2:And you're getting a layer deeper already than just okay, this person's cute or this person is attractive to me, for whatever reason. Now we also know we have some underlying commonalities. You can then use that. I kind of joke that. It's kind of like training wheels for the first move, and we've gotten some feedback from users on this that they say their first message on the surf is way more productive because it's not hot bikini, pick, pick three, it's. Hey, she likes wine and pickleball. Why don't you say meet me at pouncey track, let's have a glass of wine and play pickleball? Yep, right, go out, meet someone, hang out, get the first date. It's going to be more productive because you have you're doing something in common. Yep, you both like, and you can kind of fast track that 36 month a little bit.
Speaker 2:Absolutely you know, get past the just ooh, caught my eye. Kind of swipe, yep, let's see where it goes. The shoot from the hip, kind of thing, yep. It's like, wait, okay, these are real things about you, mm-hmm, you know, and we even have, you know, things down to religion. Go back to there. As a pastor, like you know, put if religious values on your onboarding is important to you, you can check, yes, and then you can put your religious belief specifically if you want to share it. Or you can just leave that you're a religious person or a faith-based person and then you know that you can go by that. Or if you know, one of our models at our shoot last week speaks Korean and bilingual is super important to her that her partner is fluent in Korean. She was floored when I told her you could filter the grid by Korean-speaking people only and she was like, well, I'm sold Because it's like these are the things that it's been missing.
Speaker 2:Some people are a little bit like embarrassed, I've found to say they met online, which is crazy right, because, like over 60% of relationships now are started online. I met my wife on Facebook. Yeah, exactly Right, there's no difference. And it's like all you're doing is making this, finding your person more efficient and and upping your chances of success, if you know there's these things that you care about and you have to have in a relationship, and you can immediately filter the single pool with those things and then get to the harder stuff. Right, like you know, leaving your toothbrush on the counter, like I get in trouble for all the time. Like the faster you get there, you figure out your chance at success at the 36 month mark.
Speaker 1:Right, and I think we were now at a point. It's it's refreshing to hear this because think we we're now at a point. It's refreshing to hear this because I think we're now at a point as a society like we don't like to waste time, like I've seen people cuss out a microwave because the hot pocket takes two minutes to cook. We want what we want and we want it right now. So it's like if I was back in the dating world, like being in business and and the financial intelligence that I now have that I didn't have in my early 20s. One of the first things I want to know within the first few days what's the credit score? What kind of debt am I going to be working with here? If you got half a million dollars in debt and you got a 520 credit score, boo, this ain't going nowhere. You may be hot, but like we're not getting any further than this.
Speaker 1:You would be like, nope, my credit score before I got in business for myself, kid you not was a 5'10", Like I was going to like drive time and getting like a 15-year-old vehicle and having to pay like 600 bucks a month for a beater that had over 100,000 miles on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I can't remember what my highest like debt-to-income ratio was, but there was a point there where I was fully guaranteeing a big number and I think I was bringing in 50k a year because I, you know I don't?
Speaker 2:there wasn't a lot to pay myself early on at River City Roll and obviously you know back to the other people's money thing, when you know you haven't paid all your boys and girls back, it's kind of harder to justify a big salary to yourself, right? So yeah, there was a point there where, if girls were, were filtering by debt to income ratio I would-to-income ratio. I would have been cooked Like no, no, I would have been at the bottom of everybody's list.
Speaker 1:So talk to me about like you've been married for three or four years. Yep Got kids.
Speaker 2:Yep, how old are your kids? Four-year-old daughter named Lily she's the bomb. Our number one selling food item at River City Roll is a lily pizza Nice, which is funny because it was called the lily before my daughter was named Lily. Oh, nice, she thinks it's after her and we'll let her believe it.
Speaker 1:And my son.
Speaker 2:Bobby's too, so I'll probably have to put a Bobby pizza on there now. You know, once he gets old enough to realize he doesn't have his name on the menu.
Speaker 1:So we're right. At the same mark, my daughter Harper is four years old and my son, jaden, is three years old.
Speaker 2:Incredible, such a fun time.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad we had them so close together. So when they get old now they're at the age where they can play with each other and they're doing all these things and I can finally sit Probably the biggest advice I got from somebody about parenting the realest thing I ever heard they said no one ever tells you when you become a parent, how often you have to get up from the spot that you're sitting in.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God.
Speaker 1:The second. I'm like you guys. Good, you got your snacks. All right, they're never good. Let me go lay down on the couch. Daddy, can I have a bottle of water? I was just in the kitchen. Why didn't you say something to me? Yeah, let's talk about the balance of, because I think it's absolute when you're an entrepreneur. To me, there is no such thing, because there are times where the business is a little bit more on autopilot. Like I mean, I basically cleaned house and I got a whole new staff in here that I haven't had in the last couple of years. So it's like now I'm way more entrenched in my business than I have been in the last year, and, like tonight, I have a seminar that I have to go to.
Speaker 1:So I'm not going to get home until eight o'clock tonight, which normally I always like to be home six o'clock at the latest, get to hang out with wife and kids, put them in bed at eight o'clock. I mean the wife get a little time before she gets tired. She goes upstairs and I'm watching YouTube videos on like financial education and business development and all those kinds of things.
Speaker 1:Talk to me about how that change has come for you in terms of building these businesses and making sure that you're giving attention to the right areas of your life when you yeah no, I mean, you know, my daughter came at a time is, like you know, in a non-cliche way, life-saving, because it happened during COVID, when same here. We're just having sex. During COVID, there wasn't nothing else to do, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I was in a tough mental space with river city role being closed, oh yeah, having to go through a really hard experience, you know, letting go basically my entire staff, you know, and saying, hey, I know this is coming, you need to get in the front of these unemployment lines, and I know that you don't believe me right now, but I'm trying to do this like on your best interest, right. And you know, admittedly, was drinking a little too much during those times, was kind of lost and and, um, you know, my daughter came and it was like a lifesaver and it was here's what really matters yeah, your, why immediately changes it's so and, like you know, I always kind of rolled my eyes when people said that.
Speaker 2:I do still roll my eyes at people who say like love at first sight, Because like, come on.
Speaker 1:The mom has love.
Speaker 2:at first sight, that little alien coming out and doesn't know who you are. Come on.
Speaker 1:The woman has love at first sight because she's been growing that in her belly. We're just getting to see this thing for the first time.
Speaker 2:It's like hold up, man, let me see if you're cool. My wife would kill me for telling this story, but um we, my daughter was breached, uh, meaning she was upside down so my wife had to have a c-section, yeah, and we had a scheduled date on a wednesday, and this is my advice out there to everyone having kids. Now, there's no such thing as a scheduled date for babies. So my tito's rep, tit Tito's Vodka was like all right, you need one more kind of weekend to let it rip before you become a dad and you can't play golf and get hammered for a little bit.
Speaker 2:So me and my best boy, wick, and two guys from Tito's went out to Independence Golf Club and had a day on a Saturday and my wife wakes up in the middle of the night and I had probably been asleep for about. She wakes up at 3,. I'd probably been asleep for about two hours and it's like I'm having contractions and I was like and you're still hammered at this point?
Speaker 2:And I'm like hammered, I'm hammered, and I'm like nah, nah, nah, and I'm like hammered, and I'm like nah, nah, nah, like the thing's scheduled Wednesday, like, go back to sleep, it's all right, like we're doing this on Wednesday.
Speaker 1:Put the baby back in your stomach and she's like wake up.
Speaker 2:And she's like we got to go and I was like so I go. I'm not taking this serious Because you know, chef Brad is my boy. He had kind of just had a baby and they'd had a couple pump fakes thinking the baby was coming but it wasn't so.
Speaker 1:I was like my head was in the wrong space.
Speaker 2:I'm like brad just did this. They had to come home. He was annoyed. He woke up and he didn't need to go and I was kind of being a jackass and uh, so I get into the shower and I'm like having a bowl of cereal like at 3 am and like then my wife is badass. I could talk about her for a whole hour but, um, she's tough and she kind of had one of those contractions where it hurt, yeah, and like I heard her like kind of make a noise that I never heard. So I was like, oh shit, yeah, we gotta go.
Speaker 1:Yep and um, you had to get an uber, didn't you should have.
Speaker 2:So I kind of was like all right, well, you gotta drive, she's like you're driving. So I'm like all right, gotcha like gotta get tenrico doctors, so we get there. And uh, the doctor hated me, as she should have I have on a tito's mask.
Speaker 2:I'm like a wreck and uh, I don't really know what's going on and I'm fully expecting that we're going home and not having a baby yeah we're sitting in a little prep room or whatever and I'm like sitting there, like like I'm wearing clothes, like I'm wearing I like jeans and a hoodie and have my tito's mask on, look like a total clown, smell like tito's. And doctor comes. He's like all right, we're going.
Speaker 1:I was like hell yeah going home.
Speaker 2:She's like no, no he threw me some scrubs. I was like get it together, like we're going into this baby's coming right now, and I was like, oh, shit, time to go. Well, luckily, looking back on it now, like because I was in such a loose headspace, I got probably. Yeah, I took some pretty crazy pictures of a c-section like it's documented, like if lily wants to see how she came into this world, I got it craziest pictures I told my wife I wasn't getting on that side. I.
Speaker 1:I filmed everything from over here.
Speaker 2:Everyone told me that, but I was loose, I was just I have it all Like all on the tape, everything, so like I can explain to my daughter how she was born in 25 photos.
Speaker 1:Guys, this was such an amazing episode with Rob. Things went a little bit longer. We were really enjoying our conversation, so we're actually breaking this into part two. So tune in next week for the second part of our conversation with Rob Long.