Episode 8: Jake Cross - Uncharted Film Co

What happens when a video production company outgrows its space and stumbles into a real estate deal instead? In this episode, Brandon and Alex sit down with Jake to unpack the winding, hard-won journey of scaling a video business — and then taking a completely unexpected leap into property development.

Jake opens up about the pricing mistakes that were quietly capping his business (and what happened the moment he tripled his rates), the shift from selling "a video" to selling a measurable return on investment, and how tiered proposals changed the way clients said yes. He credits Unreasonable Hospitality with reshaping how his team thinks about every customer touchpoint — no more videos delivered 30 minutes before showtime.

Then the story takes a turn: outgrowing Lean Rocket Lab, Jake and his father took on a distressed, gutted downtown building — holes in the floors and all — and turned it into a studio, podcast space, two commercial units, and three apartments. He walks through the messy reality of capital stacking a project like this: MEDC grants, American One, County National Bank, a 13-month wait for official approval, and a renovation that moved faster than anyone expected once the green light finally came.

It's a candid conversation about pricing with confidence, building systems before you think you're ready, and betting on yourself even when the math looks scary — plus a look at what's next, including a free video assessment tool and plans to expand the studio.

In this episode:

• Why tripling prices didn't scare clients away — it changed the conversation
• Turning quotes into tiered proposals built around client goals, not just deliverables
• Lessons from Unreasonable Hospitality on treating every touchpoint like it matters
• Capital stacking a building purchase: grants, banks, family investment, and patience
• The real timeline behind a "quick" downtown renovation
• What's next: growing the team, expanding the studio, and maximizing video content

Connect with Lean Rocket Lab: 

• Website: leanrocketlab.org
• LinkedIn: Lean Rocket Lab
• Facebook: Lean Rocket Lab
• Instagram: @Leanrocketlab
• TikTok: @Leanrocketlab
• YouTube: Lean Rocket Lab

Don't miss a single story! Subscribe, rate, and review Startup Storytelling by Lean Rocket Lab wherever you get your podcasts. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:07

Welcome to the Lead Rocket Lab Startup Storytelling Podcast, where we tell the raw, unfiltered stories of some of Jackson's coolest entrepreneurs, past and present. We have an incredibly exciting episode today. Before we get to that, I'd like to first of all introduce my co-hostess with the most this, Alex Maston. What's up, Alex?

SPEAKER_01 0:30

What's up, Brandon? I like the hat.

SPEAKER_05 0:35

Lean Rocket Lab merch.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Looks good on you.

SPEAKER_05 0:39

Thank you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

How you been? What's going on? I feel like I haven't seen you in like two or three days.

SPEAKER_05 0:45

We rendezvous at the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

We do, we do.

SPEAKER_05 0:48

Um, Alex has been busy. We we're in the middle of a Lean Rocket local cohort, so she's been off in the world. I've been in Hudson, Linway. Yeah, all the places working with all the entrepreneurs. How have you been?

SPEAKER_00 0:59

I've been good, busy though, you know. But it's good to sit here with our guests today.

SPEAKER_05 1:03

It feels a little bit like uh the movie Inception. Yeah, because we're like a dream inside of a dream right now.

SPEAKER_06 1:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:11

Uh our guest today is none other than Jake Cross, the founder of the Uncharted Film Co. And this is a special episode for us because Jake is truly one of the OG Lean Rocket Lab members startups. When we were uh opening up the lab and trying to find our original group of tenants, uh Jake was one of the first people inside the lab. He uh we watched him grow from you know kind of being a solopreneur who was figuring it out, um hiring and expanding. And then he was a member of our first local fellows cohort. OG he participated in many of our programs and workshops, and you know, I I I like am reticent to use the term like a success story of Lean Rocket Lab because every every entrepreneur knows that you're kind of your own success story, but we got to be we had to have a front row seat at least and be a part of the journey and help out. And so I'm really excited to to go through this. And he he's gone on. The business has grown a ton, it's expanded. We are why I said it's like Inception is we are in the uncharted studio that's right filming the podcast, and Jake is normally, you know, and his team are behind the camera making the magic happen, the editing, and you know, making Alex and I sound cool. And today you're on this side of the camera. I don't even know who's running. Yeah, what's going on back there? It's just like AI or something. And so no, we can't give credit to AI. Jake has an amazing team. We're gonna talk about all that, but um, it's great to have you on. This is an exciting episode uh because we're gonna get to hear a really cool story of a true um you know Jackson entrepreneur kind of rise up as they say the glow up.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Yeah, the glow up, baby. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 2:58

Welcome, welcome to the podcast, Jake.

SPEAKER_04 3:00

Thanks for having me. Been able to study it, you know, and get ready.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

You've been here from day one.

SPEAKER_05 3:06

Ready to go. Yeah. Yeah, you've seen how this works. So you have no excuse if you know you were not prepared and keep us on target and all that stuff. So that's right. But I can edit it out if it's not good. So we're good. Yeah. Amazing. Well, this is uh let's just start from the beginning. I think people want to hear the story. I'm excited to hear the story in all the ways that this the ups and downs, the challenges, the growth, the excitement. We'll we'll mix in there some of the the times our paths cross and how we work together. But Jake, how did you even get into this business? Um and when I, you know, when I met you, you were a guy, you know, making making videos, and now you're truly like the you know, head of a cool company doing great work. So just start from like the the beginning, not like when I was born, but yeah, like slightly after that. Yeah, somewhere after that.

SPEAKER_04 4:01

Well, I appreciate how many times you've called us cool in the last few minutes. Um I uh I've always had a passion for you know video and grew up with a camcorder in our house. So like that's where the kind of like the passion came from. We'd go around making the silly videos, and um I don't know what it was, but even in high school I remember I want to make videos, but I don't, but I'm not interested in like Hollywood. You know, like yeah, like I I love films and stuff, but I I love like the local stories and the commercial side of it, short form stuff. So that's kind of where the passion came from. I went to school for it down in Huntington, Indiana. Um, and that's where the business started. The Huntington Foresters. Huntington Foresters, that's right. Norm. Great baseball team. Norm the Forester. Never heard of him. This is the first time. Wow, right.

SPEAKER_06 4:55

Well, good.

SPEAKER_04 4:56

They're great. Yeah, they're gonna be there. You gotta get to know Norm.

SPEAKER_05 4:59

They they play Spring Arbor University. They're in the same conference. Yeah, okay, I know that's the first one. That's why everyone likes Jake's everyone that's like a Spring Arbor person knows that. Knows about Huntington. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

So almost like I'm clearly not one.

SPEAKER_05 5:12

Almost like a rivalry, you could say.

SPEAKER_04 5:13

And if you're not in the conference, you probably don't know anything about it's understandable. Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 5:20

But Huntington, most people don't know, has a incredible videography program, right?

SPEAKER_04 5:26

They do. Their whole media arts program is by far their largest program. It it when I was there, it was what they invested the most in. And yeah, they have a lot of unbelievable alumni all over the country doing really incredible things. Um, but that's where uh the business started. Uh with a couple buddies at Huntington. We decided, yes, this is what we want to keep doing. We're interested in the commercial side of it. So we started taking on some like free projects, some really like discounted work, building a website, getting connected, making marketing material, all this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

What were you guys going after? What kind of jobs at that point? Just curious.

SPEAKER_04 6:07

Anything. I mean, okay, okay. Um, I remember car dealership, some nonprofits, some churches, um, some like random realtor, like realtors and stuff like that. So, really, like anything. If we could get yeah, that's right. I've done a few flash mobs.

SPEAKER_05 6:30

Yeah, we can get into that. Yeah, we'll go later. Yeah, there's a whole chain still trying to delete right now. You don't want to know about the digital footprint. The things that we do to start. He would have done anything to make a buck back in like 2012.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Oh, what year is this? 2012?

SPEAKER_04 6:48

I graduated in 2016.

SPEAKER_03 6:54

Cut that out.

SPEAKER_04 6:55

I graduated in 2016, and that's right. We started the business in 20, like the the year we graduated. So 2015, 2016.

unknown 7:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 7:04

Um, yeah, we were doing like free work. It was purely like, can we build a portfolio? If someone gave us $300, we're like, oh my gosh, like we made money doing that.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Is there anything you wouldn't do? Not much. I mean, I $300. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 7:20

Yeah, that was like a I mean, as a student, like to do something that we like love to do that we're doing for school and then to like get money for. I remember like some classes would have us do projects for businesses, and the business would pay the program, and we're like, anyway, we'll get into that.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

Yeah, you were being exploited. Yeah, maybe a little.

SPEAKER_04 7:41

Yeah. Um, but we graduated. The the I I was determined, like this, I knew this is what I wanted to do. Like, I wanted to make it work. I was in a really good position graduating to like, you know, have a little bit of runway too. Like, I was married, my wife had a great job. We could live with family for a little bit, you know, like so. We kind of roughed it and made it work. The other two guys, awesome. I loved working with them. They both went and got really good jobs doing something else. So off camera, you said they were both quitters, basically.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

No, he didn't say that for me. Bleep that.

SPEAKER_04 8:18

Yeah, I'm telling myself to bleep that. Um, but yeah, then it was like about five years of freelancing.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Where five years?

SPEAKER_04 8:27

About for yeah, roughly four or five years, where it was weddings, dance recitals, flash mobs. I mean, anything. Like, really, um, I was working out of my house. Um, you know, we would do like commercial work. I I made some good connections, like some clients that I still have that, you know, maybe later in the last year or two of that. Um, the goal was always to go fully commercial, but it was, you know, weddings are super consistent. It was, you know, dance recitals are really consistent, like finding the consistency is just to keep going and get to a point where we felt like we could transition. So like when we stopped doing weddings, we did. I think we were doing 13 or 14 a year, which isn't like a ton, but it was definitely like taking up a good chunk of our time. And when we got enough commercial work, we just cut it off completely. We said we're not doing any more weddings. If anyone reached out, we just said we don't do that anymore.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 9:23

Yeah. So kind of like took a leap of faith there. And we tried to have like enough clients to where we could feel comfortable doing that.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

How did you decide when to make that? I mean, you're kind of talking about it right now, but like, were there was there a certain set of money that you were bringing in revenue-wise that made you feel comfortable to do that, or did you just take the risk and didn't want to do weddings anymore?

SPEAKER_04 9:42

It was when we had to say no to like commercial work because we had weddings and like you know, too many, like we had a you know, a backup of like editing weddings. And when we when when it got to the point where we didn't have the capacity to take on commercial work, and I didn't really have the experience at that point to like hire somebody and like really grow in that way. So it turned into like, do I want to lean into the weddings and just do this full time, or do I I know what I want to do, I want to go to the commercial side.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

So um and also sorry, when you're saying we, are you saying, is that just you?

SPEAKER_04 10:19

I am yes, I always say we. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

I'm just making sure, like you're doing this alone.

SPEAKER_04 10:25

Him himself, and I'm yeah, I just want to make sure people understand that.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

But definitely. You're doing it all alone.

SPEAKER_05 10:29

Yeah, at that point, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

At that point, okay.

SPEAKER_05 10:32

Jake, just for the sake of the listeners, the humble beginnings, you know, you're hustling weddings and answer titles and doing all that stuff. Talk a little bit about what it looks like today, what you guys do today, and then we'll kind of connect the dots there and hear the story. But what does Uncharted look like today? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:50

So Uncharted Film Co., we are a video production agency. So we work with businesses to help them, you know, build the right audience, build trust, authority, uh, their branding through video content. So a lot of that is content for their website, social media content. We do some like commercial work and then some like more like internal, like onboarding training video. So we do a wide variety right now. Um, but the whole goal is to help businesses grow and address specific needs that they might have through video. Um, we've got including myself, there's four of us full-time. Um, you know, still a small team, but we're a bit all hands on deck still. But you know, we're starting to get more defined roles and more processes in place and you know, continuing to figure out different ways that we can grow. And yeah, and then we're in the studio. We moved in here two years ago now, um, right downtown Jackson. And yeah, that's kind of where we're in.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

I know everybody thinks that this is filmed at the lab.

SPEAKER_04 11:55

Really?

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Interesting. I've had several people say that to me, and I'm like, nope, uncharted. You gotta go over to Uncharted. It's their studio. So you guys do a great job with the setup.

SPEAKER_04 12:05

And that's one thing. Like, uh sometimes it's like easy to think that like a lot of people know like where you are, who you are, and stuff like that. Like, one thing we learned this year is like there's still a lot of people who, even if they've seen our stuff, who have no clue who we are. And it's just like it was like eye-opening. Um, when we were at like uh we were you know given uh an award at a chamber event last year, and there's so many people who were like, I didn't know you guys were in Jackson, right? Like it was just as crazy. Like it's not crazy, it was just like eye-opening that like don't just assume people know who you are. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_05 12:44

You've you know worked with you on lots of video projects, and some clients and different people had as well. And I think there's always this like people can't believe that a local video company can make the the caliber stuff that you guys make. And so you your game has evolved since you know we first met and since early days. And I think, and maybe just quickly you can talk about the industry, but also how you got just better along the way. Like, how does that process look like? But I mean, one thing that happened that was just crazy in the last 10 years is video has become sort of everything. Like if you think about the content just personally that you consume, I think for most people, they are on their phones watching reels and shorts, and they're scrolling and they're seeing video content, and it's like the thing that you do became really almost probably relatively speaking, the only form of media that anyone consumes is video content on your mobile device and on your whatever. And so, like, can you just talk about that? I mean, that's crazy. You found yourself literally, I mean, you could have been like in newspaper class or something. Oh, yeah, newspaper. You know what I mean? It's like I think that's what they call it. How how did it how has that just been played out for you guys?

SPEAKER_04 14:03

Yeah, I well, I will say one way, that's very true. Like, it became unbelievably like prevalent for us, and we're in a great spot coming into it at a great time. Because businesses, like video's been relevant for a long time, but I think it had to be relevant long enough for businesses to for most businesses to actually like get on board and know like, okay, this is like something I have to do. Um what I would say like is like a big differentiator though, like with what we had to learn going through that is like we can't just be like there's so much like strategy and like I don't know, like like you said, there's so many different avenues, different platforms, different markets. Like we had to transition a little bit from like, hey, we'll make video to like we need to learn where video works best and like how it works best, and like how you structure like a story, and like if you need like a hook, and like it it became less about just like making a video look and sound good, and like learning all about like how it relates to people and like how you actually implement it and how you post and all those things. So um it kind of like forced us in a sense to expand from just a production company to a like like I don't want to say like a marketing agency, but kind of just like a marketing agency. Yeah, I mean like somewhat of a marketing agency with just like a focus in video, yeah. Um and that was almost like a necessity. Like it felt like a necessity instead of the other option is kind of waiting for people who have convinced themselves that they need video to like reach out. Like it's hard to convince somebody that they need video, but it's a lot easier to convince somebody that they need customers and like rates and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_05 15:55

Well, and I mean you guys really in the part of that trend. I mean, you guys became sort of one of our like most critical referral partners. You know, you guys were vetted in the lab and we were helping startups, and then obviously Ken and I were working with some more established brands and growth and strategy and things like that. And it just got to the point where it was like, you know, back in the day we needed different you know, partners and vendors for different components of growing a business, whether it was design or you know uh digital ads or whatever. Video just became so important, it was like the main thing by a huge margin. And you guys, I think we're an early adopter of saying, like, hey, we're gonna produce great content, we're gonna tell great stories, but then we're also gonna leak the charge in the distribution across platforms, and all of a sudden you were getting video became so valuable because you could shoot you know, you could have Uncharted make a great video for your company and then get the video in the format so that it could be distributed across all these different channels and platforms, and now you're getting so much return on the investment. And that was where I saw you guys sort of start to like hockey stick upwards.

SPEAKER_04 17:01

Yeah, definitely. We went from every project that we were doing was just like one off, like you want one video, here's one video, and it'll make a commercial for you or a video. Right, here's a Thursday, and it transitioned to you know, this we'll do one video, and then we will have three shorter versions of that video, and then we'll have a dozen social media shorts from that, and then we'll have an edit that can be used as an ad, like a 30-second ad.

SPEAKER_05 17:29

And um this podcast is a great example of it, right? Right. You guys recorded the podcast, and then a bunch of stuff happens afterwards that all make it actually get distributed and seen and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_04 17:40

Yeah, and that's and that's the thing, and we saw that with like a bunch of clients too. Like, we would send them a video, they would put it on the about us page on their website, and no one would ever see it. You can still like see how many views it has if it's like embedded from like YouTube, and it would have like I don't know, like a dozen views or something like that. It's like how many people are just gonna find it on right, even if you post it once, like you might post a video once and it does really well for a day or two, and then when are people ever seeing it again? Unless, yeah, they're like going through your website, and like at that point, they're already probably so invested that the video you don't need the video as much, you know.

SPEAKER_05 18:23

But um, I'm a little sad we're doing this episode because it's already gotten hard to get you and your team, you know. Back in the day, I could just you know, text you and and we could get in the queue to get a video made. And now, you know, it's like Jake's everybody wants Jake, all the clients want Jake, you know, it's it's hard, you know, it's like a running joke with the businesses in the area. You're like, if you get a hold of Jake, let me know.

SPEAKER_03 18:51

He's just so busy, man.

SPEAKER_05 18:53

It's it's an uptown problem, dude. You guys have had a little bit of a blow up and it's great, and you do good work. So uh I'd love to keep pouring it on, but I want to hear the story. So back in the day, you were I don't know if I think you had a membership or a desk at the Lean Rocket Lab, and then I I remember at one point you had an office and you were working with people in the lab, and you were, and maybe you added a person, I think. And then I remember we took out a wall for you guys at one point and you had two offices, and then now you're in this beautiful building that's actually a multi-purpose space, which I wanted to talk about that too, because you've really grown as an entrepreneur where you're not just a guy who's good at a thing and turned it into a business, you really become like a full-blown entrepreneur and you get this multi-use space, and so uh talk us through it. How did it how did it happen?

SPEAKER_04 19:42

Well, going back to like the when we first got connected with you guys, I don't know if I've ever told you this, but like I felt like I was pretty close to like I was working from home for like a few years, and I was starting to go like pretty stir crazy. Like, literally, I was like, have I left my house this week? Because I'd just be editing all the time, and like I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 20:02

I were wearing sweatpants the first time we met, so no.

SPEAKER_03 20:06

No, I was wearing like $200 jeans. No. No, no, no, I wanna ride. Kind of from the garage sale.

SPEAKER_04 20:13

They were from a garage sale. I know that's all right. I honestly probably wore it was probably one of the few. I remember like what anytime I'd get like a meeting in town, I would I would be like dressed, pants, button up, shirt. That's probably what I wore the first time. It was a different era. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:29

Sorry, keep going.

SPEAKER_04 20:30

Um no, I I felt like I was at a point where it was like it didn't make financial sense to have an office, like like just a rant, any office. But I was looking because I was like, I can't just like sit at home all day. I wasn't like people who are good going like full remote, like that's great. I cannot do it.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Me neither, man. I cannot either. I can't. I like I become depressed immediately.

SPEAKER_04 20:50

Yeah, and like I remember like I started to turn on my kids. Yes, uh, but like you guys called me at a time where I was like legitimately like considering like, do I want to do this if I'm just gonna be sitting at home all day?

SPEAKER_06 21:04

Right.

SPEAKER_04 21:04

And you guys like literally, like right in that moment, like you guys called and were like, hey, we'd love to talk to you. We're looking, yeah, we're putting this together. We're looking for somebody who can do video.

SPEAKER_06 21:14

Did you guys like private?

SPEAKER_04 21:16

No, not really. I don't remember what the connection was. Uh I think Stu probably told me. It may have been Stu. I I knew I had met Stu like a couple of times. I didn't know him that well at the time either.

SPEAKER_05 21:28

Yeah, but I remember how it works. But our original vision for it was uh, and it's evolved a lot at the lab, but we were thinking like if there were a bunch of businesses that were service-based businesses that would be able to support each other and build like a cool ecosystem, but also support the startups and the people that came in to get to work with Lean Rocket.

SPEAKER_06 21:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:52

And so it it and it it really played out that way. Somebody would walk through our door and we'd like, Hey, we have a a patent attorney and a radiography company, and we have a Web development company, and so it we kind of made it this like one-stop shop. And uh Jake, we needed a good video guy, and Jake was apparently sitting at home waiting for the client. That's that's amazing, and on the brain that literally worked. Like, we that was a good thing for everybody involved. Like, you did videos for so many of the early clients of the lab, and I think you got your name out there a little bit that way too. And yeah, that was a good deal, if I remember right.

SPEAKER_04 22:25

I remember I don't want to take up too much time, but the first video I ever did for you guys. Oh, please tell you was for the oh my god, the ribbon cutting. Do you remember it all? Oh, I do. Oh my god. If you could have seen the behind the scenes of that, oh my gosh. Were you still the one that band of that? It was just me, yeah. And I think I went around and interviewed like 20 people. It was a really crazy video. It was a huge video.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Is that the one that's pinned on the top of the Facebook?

SPEAKER_04 22:48

Yes, I believe so. It was on our website for like seven years. And I it was you were gonna show it at the launch event. I was at my house editing it. Like I was the night the day before. This was back when Jake was getting getting videos done about four minutes before the deadline. Well, there's there's a reason for this one. I I finished it the night before, but anyone who's done video editing before will know that like software will just randomly crash on you, maybe photography too. I exported that thing maybe 30 times in different changing settings. And I remember you guys were texting me, like, Jake, where's the video? And I'd be like, panic, sweating. Like, I remember like my dogs were like built the event around my dogs. They were scared because I was freaking out. I was going crazy. Yeah. And I remember I changed like one more setting and I hit export, and it was this was like 30 minutes before the event. I'm like, if it doesn't export this time, the last like month of shooting was pointless. And it did, and I uploaded it and I sent it to you guys, and you guys said you didn't even watch it because you couldn't. Nope. And then you played it and it worked. The event had already started.

SPEAKER_05 24:03

Like we were yeah, we had all the we had, you know, a hundred people in the lab, the investors and the I remember I was there, and uh we hit play on the video. I think like at first we couldn't get the sound, it was a mess, but it was an amazing impact. I think that was probably where we all saw like the talent video as a way to uh transfer a feeling, to tell a story, to create impact. I mean, there we created so much buzz out of that event, and it was largely we had interviewed all these cool people that were part of the labs kind of origin.

unknown 24:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:37

And Jake just brought it all together, and we and it was sort of like, oh, this is the way that you convey something, you know, to to create buy-in and vision and all that stuff. And so that was the beginning, and then we I mean we did a lot of projects after that, but that was the I do remember, I remember Kenny and I were at we're freaking out. We're like, where are we gonna kill? Is it? We just we just met and you're like, Who's this guy? He's not getting a membership after this. You were out of the land. I was just joking, I was just joking. So no joke.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

Well, I remember the I just want to say the first video that I remember seeing that that I didn't know who did it, and then somebody told me it was you was the 2022, or no, was it the 2022 hype video that you did for long?

SPEAKER_04 25:15

We did that one, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

I saw that on Facebook and I was like, That was a new logo. My gosh, that is killer.

SPEAKER_04 25:21

I was like, those were fun, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

That was so good. I was like, who did that? And they were like, Jake on Trigger. I was like, okay, he's gonna do every single video from this point forward. So it's so good, man. It was so creative.

SPEAKER_04 25:33

Oh, thank you. We did have a bit of a team at that point, and like part of what when you asked like how we've improved, like part of it is just like hiring, you know.

SPEAKER_05 25:40

Let's talk about that. Let's see. Yeah, so next step, obviously you're getting more and more business, you're doing a good job, but I've noticed your videos have a wider range of capability and you know, the editing and all the different things. So talk a little bit about the team and who you added and how things improved along the way.

SPEAKER_04 25:55

Yeah, I mean, just like going from just me, and you know, you still have all these responsibilities of being a business owner, but you also have to do all the operations. Like I felt like I could make very micro improvements to like the video quality and like how I actually do things, but it was when I started hiring that I could be like, oh, I can just like focus on these things and like like I most people won't get this, but like color grading is like a huge deal in video. Um and I hadn't like invested as much time in it, and then when we hired somebody, they had time to work on projects and actually spend way more time on like one specific thing that makes the video significantly better. Um and you know, we I I could still be doing all everything that I would normally be doing. So even just hiring, we're able to like define more roles and have people like, I want you to get really good at this like aspect of it. Instead of like having to get really good at making a video, you can get really good at like aspects of making a video.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

How did you know when to hire the first one though? Like how do you even know? You know, this is a question I ask every single person up here because I'm just so interested.

SPEAKER_04 27:04

So for us, we were I mean, I was personally at capacity, it was just me. And then our biggest client had just told us, like, hey, we really want to ramp things up next year. And I didn't have the capacity to really do it. Um, so my only option was to hire, and I didn't like that's not really like my forte, is like going through like I'm not an HR person, so like I knew somebody who did it, and I reached out to them and they were like, Yeah, sure, I'll join you. And like that was pretty much it.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Really?

SPEAKER_04 27:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Okay, interesting.

SPEAKER_04 27:37

Um, so I didn't go through like a whole like hiring process.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

I like just money-wise, did you feel okay, or was it a risk?

SPEAKER_04 27:44

Um it was it was a bit of a risk. I I don't know, I make a lot of like especially back then, you you you learn a lot, you know, you do it. Yep, you don't know most of the things that come along with like hiring. Um, and you just kind of figure it out as you go, as long as you can keep going. Uh so uh I can't imagine like any kind of like financial advisor at the time would have advised hiring somebody at that time, especially without like a like I had a client who told me they wanted to ramp things up. They I didn't there was no contract or anything.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Right.

SPEAKER_04 28:22

Um luckily they did. Uh so and I also knew like at the time that one client was maybe 75% of our business. Oh so I knew like I needed to diversify a bit, especially like in Jackson. Like this was not a local client. So like I was like, I need to be able to spend more time um, you know, expanding like our local market and like diversifying clients. So like if we do lose this client or if they cut back on their budget or change anything, like we're not just like immediately done. So I kind of did it more based on that than numbers, which is not a good thing, but we would not recommend yeah, hey, to each their own.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Yes, and look it, it's worked for you. Okay, well, we are taking a break to your regular programming for a nice little chat with our title sponsors, American One Credit Union. We got Tommy Harris here, and a lot of our clients know Tommy because Tommy leads our personal finance class for our local fellows program. So welcome, Tommy.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

Hi, thank you for having me. It's a blast. I love doing the classes too. So I really appreciate having me on.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

And we love having you as part of the program. So thanks for coming today. And obviously, we're here with our guest, Jake Cross from Uncharted Film, and we're talking a little bit on this break about American One Credit Union and your guys' membership and how you help your members through microlending, through bank accounts, through your financial coaching and helping them to understand their personal finances and how it impacts their business. And so today we're gonna talk a little bit about how Jake has utilized your guys' services and been a member of American One Credit Union. And so um, let's let's dive in about that. Okay, so Jake, you um had a chance to do an MEDC grant, a Michigan Economic Development Corporation grant. Can you talk to us a little bit about that grant and then how you partnered with American One or went to American One to get some help from them?

SPEAKER_04 30:19

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, American One was amazing throughout the whole process. It was a reimbursement grant with the MEDC. Um, so and we had to prove that we were able to get the funding before we could, like as a part of the application. Okay. So we started communication with American One early. They were awesome. We sat down and had a meeting and they, you know, listened to all of our needs, the whole program, and set us up uh with the perfect line of credit so we could just apply in the first place. Um and then when we received the grant, we were able to make all the purchases we need and get the reimbursement. So it made applying the like the timeline, it just made the whole process so easy.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Yeah, and as an OG 2022 fellow, you were already a member at the credit union. So when you need, when you had the need for the lending, the small line of credit that you needed, it which probably went pretty quickly. You didn't have to do much to get that started and work through that process, right? I mean, how fast do you think that turned around? Do you remember?

SPEAKER_04 31:17

Uh very quick because uh we learned about the grant pretty last minute. So I I think I mean within a few weeks, I would even say. Oh, really? Uh it was turned around. And I mean, they were even for like that first communication, because we were a member and just knew people who worked there and they had helped us on other things in the past, I was able to just shoot over an email and we met, you know, maybe a day later and got the bull the ball rolling right away.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

So, Tommy, do you want to talk a little bit about your member benefits and how if somebody is an employer that has employees, what they might want to think about? Like they think about retirement, like they think about healthcare. Like, can you talk to us a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_02 31:58

Yeah, definitely. So with the financial wealth team at America One, we do the full scope of helping with financial well-being. So we just don't look at it as a member as like a number. We dive in and like in your story, we were like looking and building that relationship and trying to find the best avenue to help you out. We do that with all employers. So when we partner with you, we don't just look at it as, oh, this is another another person that we're gonna help. We're gonna try to help every single one of your employees that doesn't have benefits or anything like that where we can help build off that financial well-being to help you any way we can.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

Can you expand upon? Because I do know that you guys work with many different types of small businesses. Um, small businesses that maybe have certain things that they want to customize for their employees. And you guys are able to do that. So, can you talk to us about how you're able to customize benefits for an employer's employees to be members of American One?

SPEAKER_02 32:51

Yeah, definitely. So when we sit down with a new company that wants to partner with us, we really customize the entire package to whatever your needs are. So the entire educational pieces to we learn what benefits you already have and how we can help your employees tailor those benefits to help them even more. So if it's sitting down and helping them with a retirement, helping them with just building a budget or even with credit, we sit down and help them full scope of after we understand what you already have and what other benefits can help them out. And we customize everything in-house. So even if it's uh something we've used in the past, we can tailor it to you or whatever you may need, we can tailor it to that dedicated business. A couple examples that I have is we've had a recently we just got a new production saw. Um Production Tog, yes. Yeah, it's amazing. And we're in their onboarding and we tailored the entire thing to uh they only had 30 minutes, but we have hit every single scope of them that they need from budgeting the credit to they um don't really have any membership, they get paid on pay cards, and we really help them understand the benefits of getting direct deposit and really getting out away from those fees that pay cards have and really just helping them out.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Well, and I think American One's mission really is, and because you guys, all of your employee you just put all of your employees through this this financial, like personal finance training, no?

SPEAKER_06 34:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Which is amazing because it's like if your employees are are flourishing and doing well, then the the business they work for is doing well. That's what I think.

SPEAKER_02 34:17

There's a like a statistic, it's like 66% of people feel overwhelmed and underperform at work once they have financial stress. So really helping them alleviate that stress by having a free resource really does help them.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

Okay, awesome. Thanks, Tommy. Thank you so much to American One Credit Union for your partnership. Yeah. All right, back to the program.

SPEAKER_05 34:38

Um, talk about some of the biggest challenges. I remember having conversations about you know, pricing. You're you know, you were scared to charge more at one point. You know, how are we gonna charge more? I was like, Jake, triple your prices and see what happens, you know. And um just some of the hurdles with people and the business and the pricing model. And so and you did a lot of things along the way to get better and learn, and you know, whether it was different classes or conversations we had or books you read. Just talk about like the business side of it and what you learned about being a business person along the way.

SPEAKER_04 35:12

Yeah. Well, I would say all around that same time, like Lean Rocket Local was probably the first educational anything I had done since school. And like I I honestly, like most of the time I say like that may have been there's a lot I took away from it, but that may have been the biggest takeaway as like like I like investing in like education is probably the best investment. Like up until that point, I was always investing like equipment or people or whatever. Um but I like realized like I realized going through the program how little I knew about running a business. Yeah, yeah, you know, um, like truly, and even just like yeah, talking to Brandon and you know the classes and everything. I was like, there it and it seemed like, especially when there's like information in the classes, where it's like that seems so obvious. Why wasn't I doing that? Why didn't I know that? Yeah, um, so like I remember like after Lean Rocket Local, like I learned a lot of things, and I immediately like signed up for another cohort. Um and then after that cohort, I got a business coach. Um not me. A real one. A program. It was a program.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

Are you talking about eLeap?

SPEAKER_04 36:31

Well, eLeap was after Lean Rocket Local. I did that, and then after eLeap, um I hired a a video agency, a specifically video agency coach.

SPEAKER_06 36:42

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 36:43

Or I joined a program, but he was a coach and you know he had the online course and like three uh like live meetings a week with the whole group and then like a one-on-one every other week. It was like a six-month program. I just like like the the those like that year where I did like local e-leap and like coaching, I was like, I would look back like a year in the past and be like, I can't believe I was running a business. Like, you know what I mean? Like a year ago, like without knowing this stuff.

SPEAKER_05 37:16

I think that's so good, Jake, because I think that people assume they assume a lot of things. They see a person that has a successful business, and one thing I think they assume is that that person always knew how to do it. And anyone who's ever had a business probably has had a lot of things that failed, a lot of businesses that failed, or they failed a lot of micro times along the way. You know, Kenny and I always joke, we almost just like sometimes have just like failed uphill, I guess. You know, you fail, but you just like keep going, and then over time it sort of buffs out a little bit. And I think what you're saying is such a good point. And I look at the I look back at my own life and I go, okay, I learned two ways. I think about 10 years ago, 15 years, 20 years ago, however long it's been, and go, oh my gosh, I didn't think you know. And I so then I think about man, but what will I know 20 years from now? But there's only two ways.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

Oh, it's blowing my mind.

SPEAKER_05 38:12

Yeah, it's crazy. And I always think like there's only two ways that you learn it. You learn it from experiencing it yourself, which usually in business means losing money and sometimes good people. And you know, just oh, I wish that wouldn't happen. And then the other way is when you get education, when you get a coach or a mentor, or you're in a cohort, or a program at the lab, or a program somewhere else, or you hire a specific agency for your business or whatever, and really that is a shortcut. And yeah, you know, in some cases those things are low cost, or maybe there is an investment that's higher, but the return is so great, and it it cuts out this giant painful learn it on your own experience. And and it can sometimes be the difference of making it and not making it, learning things that save you from going out of business. And so I give you a ton of props because I remember during that season you were just like signing up for stuff and and learning as much as you could and investing and paying for classes, and you know, I think you got a shortcut in some ways to what were some of the things you took away from that stuff?

SPEAKER_04 39:23

Well, I think you mentioned one pricing. Um, I did, I mean, when you said triple your pricing, I did, and almost immediately I got a client, like after like tripling my pricing, like, oh, wow, that's so much.

SPEAKER_03 39:36

That's crazy. That's great.

SPEAKER_04 39:37

So like that was like kind of open the door to like but I think I told you. I think we just doubled it for you guys. You did say that, that's right. Um another like in the honestly, like the the and this is like part of what's great having a team. Like, I feel like I was able to like really hone in on like processes before even starting production while our team is still getting better at making videos. So that was great. But like I that would say that is by far what I learned the most in that time is like customer experience and like um like creating proposals. Like we went from uh somebody asks us, they tell us what video they want, and I put a quote together based on how much I think it would cost us to make that video, which not leaving much room for a profit. You know, like and it's like our like you know, and it turned into like now we know exactly how much it costs our business per hour to be operational, and then we're able to um translate that into like you know, how long this project should take to shoot, edit, do pre-production, and then you know, we have our like how much we need to, what percentage we need to make off of that to can to be able to grow and not just be stagnant. So like that's even right now just like our pricing. Like we have an actual system for it. And then like we learned a lot in like the proposal phase. We went from like here's one price to of like what you asked for, to um, hey, I'm gonna like I'm gonna listen to what you want, but like I'm more interested in like what are your goals, right? Not like what video you want, but like what are your goals as a business. And we've have even had people, I'll be like, okay, like those are your marketing goals, like what are your business goals, even? And it'll even be like, you know, well, we do have a lot of turnover and hiring. So like now we do like, and I learned this a lot in that time, it's like tiered pricing. So it's pretty common that we'll get like a request that you know, this is the video we want, and that might be the first tier. And then we say, Well, let's pair that with this set of videos. So you have a strategy to get people in to see that video, and then what are they doing after the video? And then like there might be a third tier where it's you know, everything including, you know, you mentioned that one problem with hiring, let's also interview some of your staff. And um I remember the first time I did that. I like the our lowest package is what my normal rate would have been. And they took the the biggest package, and I was like, oh my gosh. And it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't like we were just like just charging more. We we learned how to provide more value. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 42:27

Well, I remember us talking about that, Jake, is I was like, you are thinking about these videos as like this is how much I think it's gonna cost us to make it, and then I need to add something to that, right? And I was like, Jake, I think you need to think about these videos in terms of the businesses that are hiring you to make them are thinking about how much money is this video going to make. What this video is gonna have a return on investment, and so I'm willing to invest in that return. And so when all of a sudden you are selling something that was generating a meaningful return, it just changes the value crop radically. And so now you're like selling this revenue three machine. Right. You sell the result, but you don't sell the product. I remember meeting with you after that and you stopped asking, Well, what do you want to do? And you're like, well, Brandon, what is your end goal here, right? What are you trying to accomplish? Well, I'm trying to do this or trying to do that or trying to get and so all of a sudden the value crop totally changed for the business. What were um just like a couple of the other big lessons that you had to learn along the way?

SPEAKER_04 43:33

Oh man. I mean, there were so many. Um one big one that we're trying to really I'll just say right now, like what I'm learning right now.

SPEAKER_03 43:45

For sure.

SPEAKER_04 43:45

Um but you don't have it all figured out today. You're still you're still. I was gonna say anyone who feels like they have it figured out probably hasn't like taken a class and they don't know how much they don't know.

SPEAKER_01 43:55

Literally in our cohort today, that's what the entrepreneur panel said to the small person.

SPEAKER_04 44:00

If you feel like you have it figured out, you're probably so far away from actually having it figured out.

SPEAKER_05 44:06

The ironic part is the problems actually get bigger along the way, not less.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 44:11

You just make bigger different problems.

SPEAKER_04 44:15

What I'm learning, like really diving into right now, is I just read uh Unreasonable Hospitality. Oh, you must have been talking to Ken. I no, we we did nerd out about it. I read it like a couple months ago. I went over and talked to him. I was like, have you read Unreasonable Hospitality?

SPEAKER_03 44:33

He pulled it out and we're like, oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 44:35

And then you then you actually regret it that you asked because No, I love it.

SPEAKER_05 44:39

Get Ken going on Unreasonable Hospitality. I love it. Yeah, what was like a key takeaway for you on that book?

SPEAKER_04 44:44

It's it's amazing for those of you who haven't read it. It is amazing. And it's about a you know, a guy who runs, well, the number one restaurant in the world at one point. But the entire book, it's about how you took this restaurant and made it the number one in the world, and he never talks about food. You know, he talks about customer experience and like taking what um, you know, like what would be like what do people expect it from their experience, and then just taking it so much further and like not making anything feel like a transaction. It's not like a business-client relationship, it's like people, it's like human to human, and then like even like mapping out what is every point that your business, every touch point that you have with the customer, like every single one. Um, and like how can you make it better? And then like you do that, and then you reevaluate later, like how can you make it better again? Um, so we're trying to like implement a lot of that right now, and even like even like the simplest stuff that we've like started to to do, we just like we get like thank you letters and stuff, like for you know, just interactions and you're not sending people videos 30 minutes before they're supposed to play them anymore.

SPEAKER_05 45:57

Not anymore. Oh man, what a what a success story. We I want to talk about this because we're running out of time. Um, you know, just when I thought you guys were gonna be this nice story of hey, we just screwed this video company, you took a major risk. And like something that in for to a lot of people probably was like out of left field, and and you really made almost a real estate play. And the process was super cool. You worked with a bunch of our partners, the MEDC and American one, and you said, Hey, we're gonna move out of the lab, we've outgrown it, and we're gonna get a building, and we're gonna make a studio and a podcast studio, and it turned into apartments and this whole renovation. And there were times where I was like, Oh boy, you know, we walk you walk to see the building. That's right.

SPEAKER_04 46:40

I remember walking you and Ken through, and you guys were like silent.

SPEAKER_05 46:43

And you're like, How much do you think this is gonna cost? We're like, way more than you think it's gonna cost. So, anyways, you did it, it worked, it was awesome. And now I even think you're looking at expanding again. But tell us the story of how you went from you know, a video company to really taking a big entrepreneurial leap and and and like kind of a next step for you in in the business and just yourself personally, too.

SPEAKER_04 47:05

Yeah, I I at that moment, like you said, we were like the the lab was incredible for our business. It was just space, like we were just running out of space. Um, and we wanted to continue to hire, and we were getting new equipment, so we were looking around. Um, I remember you guys were like shutting down the conference rooms every week to record.

SPEAKER_05 47:23

They were outgrowing this place, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:25

No, it's okay. Um, but we honestly it it started where we were just looking for space and we're like, should we consider buying a space? Like, I don't know, maybe. And then we started like learning about like programs like the MEDC and all this stuff, and then we learned about a like a grant that like if we got it, it would be like they're gonna give us money, like they're just gonna like help us pay for the project. Like, why wouldn't we do that? Um but like that whole process was like I didn't know any, like I didn't know how to do any of that. Um my take on it was like I'm just gonna like start emailing, like meeting with people. I think I met with like probably two or three people in the whole process. We're like, why are we meeting? I don't do any of this, like I have nothing to do with this. I was like, okay, sorry, I'll talk to somebody else. I was just like meeting with like everybody to like try to learn. Like, yeah, I remember meeting with like people from the MEDC and Eagle and the City. And like I think, yeah, I met with you guys at the time, and I I was just like, and by the end of it, I was like, okay, I think I know what I need to do. Um, and it just like made, you know, with like the support out there, the grants, the partners, like like it just it made a lot of sense, like why we would like purchase a building and bring in like least part of it out. So now we've got three apartments.

SPEAKER_05 48:42

You invested yourself, you got some family money, I think, involved too. You got your dad. Yeah, me and my dad owned the building. Your dad, and then you worked with American One through the local program. They got you some access to capital, and then you leveraged an MEDC downtown development grant, I think. Yeah, build my community, build my community. Yeah, we worked with County National Bank too. We worked with both of them. Um, and that was the thing we talked about a lot in the early in the fellows program was the idea of like capital stacking big project. Like it's it doesn't have to be one thing, and it doesn't have to be all your money or whatever, right? Yeah. You kind of worked really creative, you worked really hard, you talked to a lot of people, and you found a a stack of funding to make it possible. This building was a essentially a just stressed building downtown. It wasn't been empty for a long time. It was nothing, yeah. It was gutted. It was gutted. I remember there were holes in the wall.

SPEAKER_04 49:32

Yeah, you could see from the third floor to the basement.

SPEAKER_00 49:34

Yeah, it's this old befell lighting.

SPEAKER_04 49:38

Yeah, and so talk about the project, what you did, and and what it is today. So today it's we got three apartments upstairs. We've got uh two commercial spots, we're in one right now, and then the other one is Dapper Man, he's up front. Um yeah, I mean it was uh it took us a couple years to put it all together. It a lot longer. Yeah, like when when you do that's the downside to the grants.

SPEAKER_03 50:05

Like Brandon and I'm moving out, and I was like, oh, all right, man, we'll see you later. And then you're like two years later, I was like, hey, when are you moving out?

SPEAKER_04 50:11

Yeah I think I had to-EDC landed. Yeah, yeah. I know. I think it went from like a four-month project to like because we weren't able to start the project until we were approved, right? Which is just officially how construction projects go. People don't realize that but I didn't, I've learned it the hard way about it. We didn't get approved officially, like we had like a letter of intent early saying, like, hey, as long as you like follow your plan, you're gonna get this cool. But the official approval, we 13 months after we bought the building. Right. So we were just sitting on it. I mean, we were trying to do like little things here and there just to make it so when we were ready. But by the time like we got approved, like all of our contractors were like ready to go. It was only like a five-month renovation before people were like moving in. And we had um we opened in May of 24. And at the beginning of April 24, we had the whole place rented out, so a month before we opened. Um, and there were a few like decisions like you know, we were looking at like rental space, and if it was gonna be like a legitimate like improvement from like the Lean Rocket Lab in terms of space, we were gonna be spending like 1500 to like 2,000 a month, probably anyway. And that's when we started looking, like, well, if we buy, can we like have somebody else help us pay for you know the the building, like the retailer? And you know, and that's kind of how it got started. And it was like, well, no, if you just buy it outright, it just doesn't make sense. You just can't, it's gonna be expensive, it's gonna be more than renting. It's like, oh, but look, here's this program, like, and that will get the monthly costs down to this. And um, but yeah, it was a few months. We were we moved in in May of 24, and we've been yeah, we've been here since. It's been slowly growing, yeah. Two years now. It's incredible, man. Congratulations. What's the future look like? What are you guys doing in the next two to five years? Two to five years. I mean, we still want to grow our team. We've got uh a lot of offers that we're working on. I would say one thing I'm in the middle of right now is uh there's a balance between education and action. Uh sometimes you get too far into education that it's like, I've learned so much.

SPEAKER_03 52:24

It's like, oh wait, I haven't done anything there.

SPEAKER_04 52:27

Yeah, right. Uh or you like start applying something and you learn something else. You're like, oh, maybe I should just start. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01 52:32

Can I give a plug for you though? Because on your website you have a video assessment, no?

SPEAKER_04 52:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 52:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 52:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:38

And so, and when you were developing this, you had the Lean Rocket Lab go through it. And we came out with a score of like 33 out of 100 because our video usage on our website was is not where it should be. And so I encourage everyone to go and take that assessment. I think it's really good.

SPEAKER_04 52:53

Thank you. Yeah, it's I appreciate it. Yeah, it's an assessment that we so we train the assessment on how we strategize, how we structure a lot of our video proposals and the type of content that you need to attract people, to educate them and to build trust. So like it's built on that, and it will assess if you're doing that now, and then if you're not, make suggestions.

SPEAKER_01 53:14

Well, we're following your suggestions. All right, good. Awesome.

SPEAKER_04 53:17

That's good to know. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 53:19

Yes. Um, everyone go do it.

SPEAKER_04 53:21

But we're like, you know, we're trying to implement things. Honestly, like a lot of what we're adding now is how do we continue to add value, not necessarily like, you know, improve one area or another, but there's so many new tools out here now that like, you know, video first is so powerful because you end up when you do a video, you typically end up with like hours of transcripts of like data and information that can be like used to repurpose content and like take it so much further and stretch it so much wider than just like even a package of video can do. So we're really expanding in that way and looking for um developing some partnerships to um just m absolutely maximize the amount of like value and potential that you can get out of like a video. Um we're also yeah, we're we're we're somewhat looking at expanding our uh podcasting studio and like having another larger space. Um we have been in here two years and we're kind of starting to outgrow it a little bit. Like we don't plan on going anywhere here, but we we are looking for um expanded uh uh studio space so we can offer more, help more businesses uh do this.

SPEAKER_00 54:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:36

Um and yeah, that that's amazing. We want to grow continue to I mean potentially grow our team if it makes sense. Um but yeah, really just provide and you know, with the hospitality stuff, just how can we create a better experience and provide more value? So that's it.

SPEAKER_01 54:54

Well, you guys do amazing work, your team is amazing, Jake. And not only do you guys do small business commercial work, but you also do short films, which you guys is really fun. So if people are into that, they can catch you there too, right?

SPEAKER_05 55:08

Yep, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 55:09

Chandler doing that, doing that. So that's cool.

SPEAKER_05 55:11

Good stuff. Well, uh, just happy for you, man. Uh, you and your team, bunch of nice people doing a good job, proud of you and the success. And I know you're gonna keep doing good stuff. And so thanks for being our guest today. It's been great to have you on, great to hear the story. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_04 55:27

And I owe a lot, I don't think I touched enough on like how much I owe to the Lean Rocket Lab. Like, truly. I'm not just saying that because you're right here. I say that to everybody. So you guys were even like when we were going through, like I mentioned the phases of not really having as much of a plan. Like you guys were the one coming to us with work, you know. So it definitely is like a big reason why we're at where we're at. So I appreciate it. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 55:53

All right, all right, everybody. Thanks, Jake. That was awesome. Um, you know what to do. Uh, go on, subscribe, YouTube, Spotify, Apple, so you can get the next episode. Because why would you not? Bye.