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Speaker 1: I just kind of think about it as like the

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Speaker 1: spins are the rule at wheel. You know, it's if

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Speaker 1: you think about it like it's a game to keep playing.

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Speaker 1: If you keep spinning the rule that will, you're going

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Speaker 1: to hit the jackpot. And the people who get somewhere,

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Speaker 1: the people who just keep spinning. Two friends that at

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Speaker 1: outwears Great Dev's helped me and they built this beautiful

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Speaker 1: app for us, and we submitted it and oh great,

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Speaker 1: you get an A but Apple featured it and we

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Speaker 1: immediately got seven thousand users overnight. Oh man, that was

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Speaker 1: our first big kind of kick.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to the Sees the Yay Podcast. Busy and happy

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Speaker 2: are not the same thing. We too rarely question what

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Speaker 2: makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but

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Speaker 2: rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than

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Speaker 2: one way. So this is a platform to hear and

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Speaker 2: explore the stories of those who found lives. They adore,

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Speaker 2: the good, bad and ugly, The best and worst day

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Speaker 2: will bear all the facets of seizing your yay. I'm

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Speaker 2: Sarah Davidson or a spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned

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Speaker 2: funentrepreneur who swapped the suits and heels to co found

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Speaker 2: Matcha Maiden and Matcha Milk Bark CZA is a series

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Speaker 2: of conversations on finding a life you love and exploring

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Speaker 2: the self doubt, challenge, joy and fulfillment along the way.

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Speaker 2: Many of our guests on the show tell incredible stories

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Speaker 2: of trying lots of different things that they don't really

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Speaker 2: love before stumbling on a particular YA that then changes

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Speaker 2: their life. What has fascinated me about George Hartley since

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Speaker 2: the day we first met is that he's loved then

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Speaker 2: left lots of different yays to end up in his

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Speaker 2: current chapter in an industry that he originally knew absolutely

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Speaker 2: nothing about. I was first introduced to George as the

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Speaker 2: co founder and chief Marketing and Product officer of Blue Thumb,

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Speaker 2: Australia's largest online art marketplace, which many of you have

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Speaker 2: probably already heard of or purchased from, but if you haven't,

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Speaker 2: George describes it as the SoundCloud of art. Launched in

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Speaker 2: twenty twelve, blue Thumb connects over twenty thousand Australian artists

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Speaker 2: with collectors, facilitating the sale of more than one hundred

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Speaker 2: thousand original artworks to date, with around half a million

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Speaker 2: dollars worth of art currently for sale. How he has

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Speaker 2: completely revolutionized the art industry, which was previously quite inaccessible

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Speaker 2: and intimidating with laws of middlemen, and then grown the

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Speaker 2: Bluethorm business to extraordinary heights, having recently launched in the USA.

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Speaker 2: Is a fascinating story in itself. I didn't, however, expect

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Speaker 2: to ask about his prior connections to the art world

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Speaker 2: and where the idea was spawned, only to hear him say, oh, no,

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Speaker 2: I know nothing about art. While I've always been a

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Speaker 2: pretty big proponent of finding a business idea out of

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Speaker 2: a gap in the market that you stumble upon yourself

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Speaker 2: as a consumer, so you have a personal connection. George

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Speaker 2: is an amazing example that you can, of course reverse

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Speaker 2: engineer a business by perceiving a gap in the market

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Speaker 2: without any prior connections, qualifications, or a foot in the door,

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Speaker 2: and that that can often in fact be an advantage.

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Speaker 2: Much to my surprise, he actually began by studying marketing

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Speaker 2: and accounting at UNI, had an entire marketing Korea. He

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Speaker 2: then left to do music full time, which he then interned,

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Speaker 2: left to do a master's in computer science, and then

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Speaker 2: worked in ux design, all before Blue Thumb began. I

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Speaker 2: loved our first chat at a founder's dinner where this

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Speaker 2: all unraveled, and have been wanting to continue it in

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Speaker 2: depth so much, and you guys just happened to benefit

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Speaker 2: from that too, so I hope you all enjoy. George,

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Speaker 2: Welcome to SEZ THEA.

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Speaker 1: Thanks Sarah. Great to be here.

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Speaker 2: Oh it's so so lovely to see you. How do

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Speaker 2: we make friends? It's a bit random. I was a customer,

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Speaker 2: then we connected online, and then we met like a

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Speaker 2: week later out of the blue at an event, but

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Speaker 2: I did know you were going to be here. And

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Speaker 2: one of my new best friends is your wife, so

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Speaker 2: we have so many different connections.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah. She's a huge fan of the pod, like

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Speaker 1: super fan, and when I told her I chatted at

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Speaker 1: that dinner, she was like, oh, oh my god, you

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Speaker 1: have to go on the pod. So yeah, she's like,

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Speaker 1: I'm excited to be here, and she's even more excited.

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Speaker 2: It's actually the sweetest. She came for the start of

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Speaker 2: this session today, so I got to meet her in

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Speaker 2: real life, and I absolutely love that I have a

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Speaker 2: super fan. I didn't even know they existed, so that's

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Speaker 2: just absolutely delightful. Thank you for bringing the AA to

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Speaker 2: my dad. Well, I'm so excited to have you here

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Speaker 2: because I had been a customer of Blue Thumb before

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Speaker 2: I knew any of your story. And of course, the

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Speaker 2: natural assumption is that art is in your background or

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Speaker 2: in your history or family, or that there's some kind

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Speaker 2: of logical connection. But one of my favorite parts of

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Speaker 2: CZA is finding pathways that don't necessarily make as much sense,

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Speaker 2: and they have lots of different dots that connect in

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Speaker 2: different ways. So there was an AFI article about you

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Speaker 2: that I came across about the business in my research,

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Speaker 2: and it was all about music, not art, nothing to

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Speaker 2: do with art. Yes, So the beginning of your story

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Speaker 2: is actually much more musical. Tell us about your childhood

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Speaker 2: and what you thought you'd kind of be back then.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well yeah, Blue Thumb kind of. I guess it's

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Speaker 1: the is the second big thing I've done with my life.

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Speaker 1: My you know, I always thought I'd be a musician,

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Speaker 1: and that was my one like one searing passion was music,

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Speaker 1: I guess, So yeah, I sort of always just loved

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Speaker 1: music playing, you know, growing up I played in bands.

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Speaker 1: I played the trombone and the bass guitar as well

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Speaker 1: and keyboards, and I'd always had bands with my best

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Speaker 1: friends when when we were kind of in high school

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Speaker 1: and then at university, and even I worked as an

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Speaker 1: English teacher in Japan.

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Speaker 2: I formed a band.

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Speaker 1: Random, so I finished the Minion and then I went

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Speaker 1: to Japan to teach English. But I joined a band

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Speaker 1: over there, like a Japanese rock band, and I was

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Speaker 1: the bass player, and well, yeah, we played a whole

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Speaker 1: bunch of great shows as well while I was doing that.

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Speaker 1: And I came back and I grew up in Adelaide,

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Speaker 1: and I chose to move to Melbourne because this is

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Speaker 1: kind of like the cultural harb is where the best

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Speaker 1: music was, all right, and I just wanted to be

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Speaker 1: surrounded by it. And so I kind of i'd finished

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Speaker 1: university and I went into marketing because I didn't really

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Speaker 1: know what else to do. And I was playing in

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Speaker 1: bands here in Melbourne, and a few years into marketing,

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Speaker 1: I was sort of like, I'm not very good at this.

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Speaker 1: I was at a big ard agency. I slacked at it,

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Speaker 1: and I was like there must be more, you know,

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Speaker 1: So I quit and I went to play music full

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Speaker 1: time in my twenties for a few years, and after

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Speaker 1: about you know, mid to late twenties, it just wasn't happening,

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Speaker 1: and it was really hard, and it was really hard

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Speaker 1: to think you only want to do one thing, and

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Speaker 1: like I felt like I was only really good at

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Speaker 1: that one thing. Well, it's all you've done, It's all

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Speaker 1: I'd really focused on. Yeah, it'd been just my passion,

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Speaker 1: and so I'm like it was one of those really

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Speaker 1: hard moments where I'm like, if this isn't working, then

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Speaker 1: what you know? And it was literally around that time,

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Speaker 1: I was probably twenty six. I got an iPhone. I'm like, oh, I.

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Speaker 2: Love this, Hello New World.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I started reading the jobs biography at the

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Speaker 1: same time, like, oh, this is interesting, and I kind

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Speaker 1: of thought back on actually, I also have loved technology,

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Speaker 1: used to make websites for friends. I'd always be there,

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Speaker 1: sort of the technology person, and I did like it.

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Speaker 1: I was going to study it at union. Then I

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Speaker 1: didn't see it, Like I took the advice to someone

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Speaker 1: who said, oh, you'll be plugging in cables at Telstra, Like,

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Speaker 1: oh god, that sounds like death on a stick. I'm

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Speaker 1: not going to study that. So but I got you know,

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Speaker 1: I got a twenty at school for it, and I

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Speaker 1: was good at it, and I liked it, and I'm like, actually,

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Speaker 1: I think I like that as well. So I made

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Speaker 1: this kind of this big call and I just stopped

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Speaker 1: music and studied study computer science, and that kicked off

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Speaker 1: what I'm doing now. Yeah, I mean.

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Speaker 2: That in itself is before we even get to the

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Speaker 2: second big iteration of your career. The fact that you

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Speaker 2: had this one searing passion, and that is also like,

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Speaker 2: I think the arts is something that people are also

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Speaker 2: often discouraged from because it is so hard and it's

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Speaker 2: so competitive and you're never going to make it and

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Speaker 2: blah blah blah. The fact that you actually quit everything,

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Speaker 2: you've done one big leap of faith. You've quit everything,

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Speaker 2: quit your marketing job to go into music. That already

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Speaker 2: is a huge theme in CZA taking a big risk

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Speaker 2: on something, but often the story is looking back, you

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Speaker 2: took a risk and it worked, but you took a

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Speaker 2: risk and it didn't necessarily work out the way that

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Speaker 2: you'd hope, And like, I think, I think we also

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Speaker 2: come to see failure as like a big scary thing

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Speaker 2: that's awful, and then your life will be over. But

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Speaker 2: that led to this pivot, which then led to the

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Speaker 2: coolest thing ever. So I love this. There's so many

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Speaker 2: themes in the story already that are amazing. But before

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Speaker 2: we get to the sort of more computer science tech

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Speaker 2: part and then the Blue Thumb story, can you talk

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Speaker 2: us through the mindset that you had at the time,

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Speaker 2: because I think it's easy to tell it now that

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Speaker 2: we know that it's all worked out for you, But

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Speaker 2: at the time, when you've been passionate about something your

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Speaker 2: whole life, you have risked everything. How did you confront

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Speaker 2: that feeling of failure or the feeling of like, what

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Speaker 2: else do I do? Because I think one of the

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Speaker 2: big things we do as humans is we stilo ourselves

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Speaker 2: into I'm a musician, or I'm creative, or I'm not creative,

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Speaker 2: or I'm a numbers person, and then we think you

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Speaker 2: can't be anything else ever, But I think we're actually

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Speaker 2: really agile and versatile. But you have to let yourself.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely no. And it felt scary, like it felt

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Speaker 1: petrifying at the time to do, but also it's sort

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Speaker 1: of I do like trying things. I do like I

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Speaker 1: like the feeling of progressing at something, and I think

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Speaker 1: most people do you know whether you're it's a skill

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Speaker 1: or a hobby or a new kind of work stream.

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Speaker 1: I like that feeling of becoming better at something, progressing,

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Speaker 1: you know, towards mastery, and so I kind of thought

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Speaker 1: about it like that a little bit as well. I'm like, oh, look,

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe wor at worst kind of I can

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Speaker 1: pick my base up again, but at least I'll learn

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Speaker 1: how to kind of make apps, you know, make websites.

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Speaker 1: So I kind of thought about it that way at

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Speaker 1: the time. But you know, looking back, it's like, I'm

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Speaker 1: so glad my path led me here. Yeah, and you know,

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Speaker 1: of course it was a good idea to like go

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Speaker 1: into tech. Of course it was a good idea to

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Speaker 1: become you know, to join an app developer and then

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Speaker 1: start Blue Thumb and then you know, raise money and

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Speaker 1: all this stuff. But at the time petrified these moments. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you don't know what to do, but I did, you know,

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Speaker 1: optimize towards kind of action and just trying something so

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Speaker 1: and you have less to lose than you realize. Yes,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's actually you never regret action, really, you know,

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Speaker 1: I only ever regret in action.

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Speaker 2: It's so true. I love that you can remember that.

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Speaker 2: It was petrifying because I think often people who are

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Speaker 2: listening to the podcast often tune in because they're in

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Speaker 2: that earlier phase where it hasn't worked out yet, and

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Speaker 2: they are in that like, oh my god, this thing

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Speaker 2: hasn't worked out or I haven't quite found my blue

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Speaker 2: thumb yet. But even going back to UNI as kind

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Speaker 2: of in an industry that you hadn't you know, done

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Speaker 2: your undergrady, and even that's overwhelming. What was that like?

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Speaker 1: Well, I was going through some boxes the other day

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Speaker 1: and I found the rejection letter from r MIT. No,

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Speaker 1: what I've forgotten? I got rejected really because I applied

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Speaker 1: for a Masters of Computer Science and I didn't have

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Speaker 1: an undergrade in computer programming, and I.

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Speaker 2: Didn't you did it becom right?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I did become Yeah, and I'd forgotten it,

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Speaker 1: like I've got a terrible memory there, I forget bloody everything.

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Speaker 2: I'm the same, I've watched the same So this is

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Speaker 2: such an aside, but mine is so bad that I

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Speaker 2: watched Chernobyl the series, like I've watched the entire thing.

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Speaker 2: I knew i'd watched the entire thing, but I was like, oh,

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Speaker 2: it's been long enough, I've forgotten it. I'll go back

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Speaker 2: to the start. I watched episode six first, but because

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Speaker 2: it's all out of order, I was like, oh, this

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Speaker 2: is episode one. Didn't know got to the end. The

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Speaker 2: black and white credits came up at the end saying

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Speaker 2: and then this person went to jail, and I was like,

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Speaker 2: that's weird that they did that in episode one. It

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Speaker 2: was like, I have absolutely lost my marvel. So I'm

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Speaker 2: with you.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's a great series. I've got to rewatch it.

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Speaker 2: I don't even know why that change.

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Speaker 1: That's all my brain's doing, right, I know that's my

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Speaker 1: brain too. I forget everything, and I've forgotten. I've been rejected.

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Speaker 1: And I looked at this rejection that I'm like, I

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Speaker 1: couldn't even know. I'm like, then I remembered I actually

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Speaker 1: had got knocked back, and I went in to meet

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Speaker 1: the vice dean of computer science, and for some reason

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Speaker 1: I convinced them. I can vaguely remember saying, no, I'm

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Speaker 1: really good at programming, blah blah blah, you do't regret,

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Speaker 1: and they tried to talk me out of it, and

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Speaker 1: somehow I got in even though I'd got this formal rejection.

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Speaker 1: I remember, I only remembered it when I saw the

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Speaker 1: piece of paper. So yeah, they didn't think it was

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Speaker 1: a good idea either.

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Speaker 2: I guess I love it. You're just like I refused

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Speaker 2: to accept that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I found the rejection letter for the Blue

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Speaker 1: Tharm business plan for their business competition. I applied for it,

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Speaker 1: you know, in second or third year, I remember that.

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Speaker 1: But Blue Thumb the app was a UNI project for

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Speaker 1: r MIT.

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Speaker 2: Actually really yeah, so.

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Speaker 1: It was maybe the third year of it or whatever.

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Speaker 1: I was working as an app developer and that was

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Speaker 1: like the first job I'd actually loved in my life.

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Speaker 1: I'd be twenty seven or something. I sort of went

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Speaker 1: to outwear they are the best app makers, said I

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Speaker 1: want to work here, and they're like, can you program that?

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Speaker 2: Not yet?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well I'm two months into the UNI Like, well

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Speaker 1: then you're useless to us. I'm like, no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: what else do you need? And they had this argument,

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Speaker 1: the two founders in front of me, like we don't

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Speaker 1: need and we need developer as well. I'm here, And

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Speaker 1: eventually they're like, look, you can do it day a

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Speaker 1: week doing some marketing. Maybe do you know how to design?

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Speaker 1: I'm like, what's that? Do you know? U? Ex design?

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Speaker 1: Like I'm doing course next semester, Like okay, you can

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Speaker 1: maybe try that. So anyway, I've worked with these developers

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Speaker 1: and there's the first job i'd loved, and now I

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Speaker 1: was there and I had this unique assignment for RT

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Speaker 1: to do to make an app like an iOS app,

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Speaker 1: and oh blue Thumb, you know, we're just getting rolling

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Speaker 1: with the website, we'll make an app for it. And

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Speaker 1: I was not a very good dev. I never was

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Speaker 1: a good dev. But a friend, two friends that at

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Speaker 1: outwears Great devs helped me and they built this beautiful

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Speaker 1: app for us that was like lovely experience of our website,

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Speaker 1: and we submitted it and RT, oh great, you get

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Speaker 1: an A but Apple featured it and we immediately got

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Speaker 1: seven thousand yearss overnight.

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Speaker 2: Oh man.

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Speaker 1: That was our first big kind of kick forward was

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Speaker 1: my UNI app that the guys at work and helped

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Speaker 1: me build got featured. That's amazing, sent things up like

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Speaker 1: the first you know, you get these step changes occasionally,

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Speaker 1: very occasionally. That was the first one.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think the first one is that you had

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Speaker 2: a first career that didn't work. That was the first step.

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Speaker 2: I always come back to that idea that you know,

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Speaker 2: and people listening will be like, oh my god, you've

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Speaker 2: been talking about this for seven years now, shut up.

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Speaker 2: But it's always relevant to me. And that's that you

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Speaker 2: don't have to see the whole staircase. You just have

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Speaker 2: to see the immediate next step that you're on, and

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Speaker 2: like that's all you can throw things at. They don't

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Speaker 2: all have to work out, Like they don't all have

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Speaker 2: to be the You don't have to reach the end

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Speaker 2: of the staircase that you started on, like you can

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Speaker 2: change direction as you go along. And I love that

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Speaker 2: you didn't love what you were doing until twenty seven.

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Speaker 2: And in most people's brains in the early twenties, you

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Speaker 2: think that's why too late. I think we have this

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Speaker 2: like perceived schedule of life of when we should find

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Speaker 2: our passion and when we should find what we're going

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Speaker 2: to do. But you hadn't even entered the industry that

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Speaker 2: you ended up in, like your whole family's music. You

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Speaker 2: have a history in music, You were doing it full time,

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Speaker 2: and you never considered that there was anything else for you.

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Speaker 2: I think anyone listening who is all consumed in something

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Speaker 2: and you don't love it, but you don't know where

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Speaker 2: else you can go. That's okay, It's so common, like

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Speaker 2: more common than you ever imagine. But then you have

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Speaker 2: found this thing that you love, and it sounds like

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Speaker 2: you had actually faced more rejection than I knew of

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Speaker 2: in the story quite early on. How do you Because

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Speaker 2: I think people are also they're not just scared of failure,

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Speaker 2: they're also scared of rejection when someone says no to you.

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Speaker 2: What does that feel like? Do you take it as

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Speaker 2: a challenge. Do you have a moment where you're like, oh, well,

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Speaker 2: it's going to fail. I'm not going to do it.

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Speaker 2: How do you deal with that kind of self doubt

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Speaker 2: dialogue that happens when you do get a know because

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Speaker 2: for some people that'll be it blue. Some would have

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Speaker 2: never got off the ground. But I love that you

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Speaker 2: were like, fuck it, I'm going to do it anyway.

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Speaker 2: Oh r M, I T you take that back. I'm

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Speaker 2: going to force my way into this course.

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Speaker 1: Look, I take notes, so personally, I like I've got

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Speaker 1: the thinner skin in the world. Like I sit back

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Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, it's all, oh give up, No,

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Speaker 1: this is a terrible idea. And I like, I'll have

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Speaker 1: I have half a day of just moping the world's ended.

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Speaker 1: I'm ship this sucks. And then it's either like I

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Speaker 1: talked to Lauren or I talked to a co found

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Speaker 1: or whatever, and suddenly you're like, you're back on. Oh,

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Speaker 1: those guys don't know what they're doing, Like suddenly I

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Speaker 1: don't know, Actually you're fine. And I just kind of

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Speaker 1: think about it as like the spins are the rule

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Speaker 1: that will. You know, It's if you think about it,

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Speaker 1: like it's a game to keep playing. If you keep going,

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Speaker 1: if you keep spinning the rule that will, you're gonna

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Speaker 1: you're gonna hit the jackpot. You're gonna you're gonna get somewhere.

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Speaker 1: And the people who get somewhere, the people who just keeps.

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Speaker 2: Me, Oh, I love.

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Speaker 1: That's all it is. It's my ambition is always far

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Speaker 1: outweigh my talent in anything I've ever done that.

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Speaker 2: Is extremely inaccurately humble and absolutely.

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Speaker 1: Not you know, like I said, programming, I was never

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Speaker 1: very good. Music, I was never great. I just loved it. Like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think my ability to keep going is probably my

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Speaker 1: strongest strength, more than any than any talent. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: like when I get to know, I take it really

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Speaker 1: personally and I have a terrible day and then.

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Speaker 2: Pretty quick turnaround. To be fair, I guess.

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Speaker 1: And then you keep going and not. Yeah, and it's

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Speaker 1: always for me, like, you know, on my own, i'd

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Speaker 1: never get anywhere. Like, it's always having someone to wing to,

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Speaker 1: someone to bounce off, always having someone else, because if

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Speaker 1: you're going through it together, you're fine.

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Speaker 2: Like that's a great point.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's solo founders I'm absolutely in awe of because

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Speaker 1: I couldn't. I just couldn't. Yeah, but having someone there

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Speaker 1: to just at least commiserate with or to agree that

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Speaker 1: these guys are idiots and don't know what they're.

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Speaker 3: Doing them.

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Speaker 2: Hype girl in that moment.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely Yeah, And like my hype girl was my brother

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Speaker 1: and kid.

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Speaker 2: Nice. I was thinking more Lauren, but with the pomp. Well,

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Speaker 2: I love that because it's a really common theme, I think,

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Speaker 2: and it doesn't get talked about as much because the

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Speaker 2: media are always going to focus on the success story

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Speaker 2: and the most recent chapter of your life. That's always

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Speaker 2: going to be what the articles are about. But I

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Speaker 2: find that when you dig a little deeper, most really

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Speaker 2: successful founders have thrown a couple of ideas out at

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Speaker 2: the world that have come back and not gone very well.

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Speaker 2: Like it's never not never, but it's very Unusually the

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Speaker 2: first try that becomes the thing that blows up. And

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Speaker 2: I just don't think you hear about that enough, because

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Speaker 2: you know, why would you talk about that. But I

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Speaker 2: think people who are in their first or second try

396
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Speaker 2: that hasn't gone so well need to hear that that's

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Speaker 2: not a deterrent. That's you just experimenting and playing roulette.

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Speaker 2: And it's like, don't stop because the first one didn't work.

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Speaker 2: Some people it takes them like seven tries. Just keep

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Speaker 2: going because you'll find the thing absolutely And yeah, give

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Speaker 2: yourself a day, give yourself a couple of days if

402
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Speaker 2: it takes that to open. Feel like failure hurts, it does,

403
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Speaker 2: It stings, But if you bounce back, you can you

404
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Speaker 2: can have a blue thumb. So I love that. So

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Speaker 2: tell us once you had And I loved reading that.

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Speaker 2: It was around the idea that art is an industry

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Speaker 2: that's very intimidating. It feels sometimes a bit stuffy and

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Speaker 2: inaccessible if you don't understand the provenance of everything. And

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Speaker 2: I love that you actually came to the industry as

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Speaker 2: an outsider and then wanted to make it accessible. How

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Speaker 2: did you like? How where did the name come from?

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Speaker 2: Where did the initial concept that you turned into an app.

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Speaker 2: Come from and how did you meet your co founders?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think coming to art from outside, like my

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Speaker 1: two co founders a chartered accountant and I was like

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Speaker 1: an app designer, so far away from coming to it

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Speaker 1: as an outside I think has actually been a benefit

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Speaker 1: to us because it sort of hadn't really been done.

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Speaker 1: Like we you know, we were trying to make build

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Speaker 1: tech tools for artists to sell their artwork directly to collectors, right,

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Speaker 1: we wanted to ignore the middle layer of industry of art.

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Speaker 1: And Yeah, I like I hated the feeling of going

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Speaker 1: to a gallery and just getting kind of like dismissed.

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Speaker 1: You know, if you have to ask what it is

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Speaker 1: and the price, then it's too expensive for you, you know,

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Speaker 1: I hate that for you.

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Speaker 2: There are no prices in gallery like.

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Speaker 1: You know I And also when we're doing our first research,

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Speaker 1: like I spoke to a few industry folks and a

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Speaker 1: couple of galleries and I remember being laughed at, like

431
00:20:56,320 --> 00:21:00,040
Speaker 1: properly laughed at. Yeah, And that really put fire in

432
00:21:00,080 --> 00:21:02,560
Speaker 1: the belly, you know, someone like just laughing at you.

433
00:21:03,240 --> 00:21:05,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had your open you twenty four hours and then.

434
00:21:05,720 --> 00:21:09,679
Speaker 1: No, No, that was pure, like like, Okay, now now

435
00:21:09,720 --> 00:21:14,920
Speaker 1: I'm going to try and build this out of spite.

436
00:21:13,040 --> 00:21:14,159
Speaker 2: Is a powerful emotion.

437
00:21:15,200 --> 00:21:18,280
Speaker 1: Yes, so that was like, okay, screw you, I'm going

438
00:21:18,320 --> 00:21:20,640
Speaker 1: to prove that. You know, no one will ever buy

439
00:21:20,760 --> 00:21:23,920
Speaker 1: art for a thousand bucks sight unseen. That was like

440
00:21:23,960 --> 00:21:26,280
Speaker 1: they were pissing themselves at us. I'm like, okay, And

441
00:21:26,359 --> 00:21:32,399
Speaker 1: when we hit that mask and I'm like yeah, but

442
00:21:32,600 --> 00:21:35,000
Speaker 1: and yeah, we'd had bandit out a few ideas. We

443
00:21:35,040 --> 00:21:37,879
Speaker 1: were going to do a wine website. I wanted to

444
00:21:37,880 --> 00:21:42,320
Speaker 1: do music obviously, but SoundCloud was so good. SoundCloud was

445
00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:45,000
Speaker 1: just this perfect platform that put artists right in front

446
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:48,160
Speaker 1: of their fans. I'm like, this is perfect. We can't

447
00:21:48,320 --> 00:21:51,320
Speaker 1: how are we going to beat this? But like SoundCloud

448
00:21:51,359 --> 00:21:53,520
Speaker 1: for art and I was like, there's an idea, love

449
00:21:53,640 --> 00:21:57,040
Speaker 1: that cloud. Yeah, Like so that was kind of That's

450
00:21:57,080 --> 00:21:59,120
Speaker 1: been the vision pretty much the whole time is let's

451
00:21:59,119 --> 00:22:01,399
Speaker 1: build SoundCloud for us, let's build tools for artists to

452
00:22:01,440 --> 00:22:04,480
Speaker 1: sell their artwork in front of collectors. And from the

453
00:22:04,520 --> 00:22:09,560
Speaker 1: start we sort of you know, I loved really nice ux,

454
00:22:09,600 --> 00:22:12,480
Speaker 1: really nice technology. Like, like I said, the Jobs book

455
00:22:12,600 --> 00:22:15,480
Speaker 1: was like a real changing life pivotal moment. Reading that

456
00:22:15,560 --> 00:22:18,040
Speaker 1: and I'm like, Okay, I think if we build a

457
00:22:18,080 --> 00:22:21,359
Speaker 1: better product. You know, we're coming from outside art, let's

458
00:22:21,359 --> 00:22:24,439
Speaker 1: just build the best technology tool. I think we will

459
00:22:24,680 --> 00:22:27,960
Speaker 1: be able to kind of really get somewhere. So we

460
00:22:28,040 --> 00:22:30,280
Speaker 1: just focus on a better product. And then we had

461
00:22:30,280 --> 00:22:33,360
Speaker 1: to learn distribution and marketing, which was like like, oh,

462
00:22:33,400 --> 00:22:39,320
Speaker 1: you actually have to think about this product person. Oh wait,

463
00:22:39,480 --> 00:22:43,560
Speaker 1: we have to pay attention to SEO. So we learned

464
00:22:43,560 --> 00:22:47,399
Speaker 1: that along the way. But but yeah, it was you know,

465
00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:51,640
Speaker 1: we actually we bought a website for from an art gallery,

466
00:22:51,840 --> 00:22:55,480
Speaker 1: like okay, and you know, we'd bought another website for

467
00:22:55,680 --> 00:22:58,399
Speaker 1: apps and stuff, so we bought this art galeries website, like,

468
00:22:58,480 --> 00:23:01,240
Speaker 1: let's turn this into SoundCloud for right. So that's where

469
00:23:01,720 --> 00:23:03,000
Speaker 1: that's actually where it started.

470
00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:06,040
Speaker 2: This was still at UNI, so it was still I was.

471
00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:09,280
Speaker 1: Working it out where as well doing UNI as well,

472
00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:12,880
Speaker 1: and Fill and Ed were both lack accountants working full

473
00:23:12,880 --> 00:23:16,080
Speaker 1: time accounting jobs, and so we're like, okay, cool, we've

474
00:23:16,080 --> 00:23:19,480
Speaker 1: got this art gallery website. Let's turn it into a platform.

475
00:23:19,600 --> 00:23:21,960
Speaker 1: Let's turn into a marketplace. We'll call it Blue Thumb

476
00:23:22,440 --> 00:23:24,840
Speaker 1: started working on the app as well, and we sort

477
00:23:24,840 --> 00:23:27,239
Speaker 1: of we chipped away with our jobs and with this

478
00:23:27,280 --> 00:23:30,520
Speaker 1: blue thumb on the side for a couple of years.

479
00:23:30,520 --> 00:23:33,160
Speaker 1: I'd say, real, Like I said, my memory is absolutely terrible.

480
00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:36,439
Speaker 1: This was started twenty twenty a twelve, I reckon it

481
00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:40,840
Speaker 1: was maybe mid twenty thirteen. I remember that one of

482
00:23:40,840 --> 00:23:45,680
Speaker 1: the best days of my Yeah, yeah, look I know this,

483
00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:48,119
Speaker 1: but I do remember one of the best days of

484
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:50,480
Speaker 1: my life was when I had to stopped being the

485
00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:56,919
Speaker 1: customer service person. Man Like, yeah, our first hire and

486
00:23:56,960 --> 00:23:58,159
Speaker 1: customer service.

487
00:23:57,880 --> 00:24:04,120
Speaker 2: Was like just bliss, which actually is really interesting because

488
00:24:04,160 --> 00:24:05,600
Speaker 2: it does come back to the fact that you do

489
00:24:05,760 --> 00:24:07,920
Speaker 2: kind of have to do everything and learn everything at

490
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:10,920
Speaker 2: the start of most startups, not all of them, some

491
00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:13,720
Speaker 2: need like full scale teams to start off. But even

492
00:24:13,880 --> 00:24:18,040
Speaker 2: before that, I loved hearing about how you sort of

493
00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:20,439
Speaker 2: thought about wine and then you thought about art. And

494
00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:25,480
Speaker 2: I think I have erroneously maybe like it works for

495
00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:28,800
Speaker 2: my particular situation, but always been a big proponent of

496
00:24:28,920 --> 00:24:30,960
Speaker 2: find a gap in the market where you're the consumer

497
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:34,120
Speaker 2: and you've had the experience, don't reverse engineer it, don't

498
00:24:34,119 --> 00:24:36,720
Speaker 2: go I want to be a business person, Let's find

499
00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:39,000
Speaker 2: an idea. Go. I stumbled upon an idea because I'm

500
00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:41,199
Speaker 2: the consumer but I think you're a really good example

501
00:24:41,240 --> 00:24:43,240
Speaker 2: of that. Of course you can reverse engineer it. Of

502
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:45,080
Speaker 2: course you can say I need a business idea, where

503
00:24:45,119 --> 00:24:47,120
Speaker 2: is there a gap? Look at the market and find one.

504
00:24:47,160 --> 00:24:48,879
Speaker 2: And it doesn't have to be something that you know

505
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:52,359
Speaker 2: anything about. You just have to be the best at

506
00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:54,280
Speaker 2: like how you present it. You have to have a

507
00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:56,160
Speaker 2: skill set that. It doesn't have to be in art.

508
00:24:56,240 --> 00:24:59,240
Speaker 2: It can be. Remember the conversation we had when I said, oh,

509
00:24:59,359 --> 00:25:02,400
Speaker 2: obviously you're an and you were like, no, how fascinated

510
00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:03,240
Speaker 2: I was. Do you remember?

511
00:25:03,280 --> 00:25:06,119
Speaker 1: I was just like I got an art podcast just

512
00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:07,080
Speaker 1: so I can learn about it.

513
00:25:07,320 --> 00:25:08,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, you were like, no, I know nothing about it.

514
00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:10,719
Speaker 1: I don't. Yeah, I sit on that podcast. I'm like, oh,

515
00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:13,639
Speaker 1: I haven't heard of that person that's like Lauren? Is

516
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:18,199
Speaker 1: he so much stick? Because yeah, So no, none of

517
00:25:18,280 --> 00:25:21,280
Speaker 1: us knew anything about art. Dad was a painter, though

518
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:23,879
Speaker 1: he had a real passion for it. Isn't it countt

519
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:27,159
Speaker 1: who painted? So he loved art. So a house was

520
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:29,680
Speaker 1: ful of art, but he doesn't know much about it.

521
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:32,560
Speaker 1: He just likes painting. But no, none of us had

522
00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:35,000
Speaker 1: a clue what I would say. Though I was building

523
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:40,640
Speaker 1: a product that I could empathize with as a musician.

524
00:25:40,760 --> 00:25:43,000
Speaker 2: Yes, so like as the artist.

525
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:47,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, that kind of connection as to what would I need,

526
00:25:48,320 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 1: what do I need to kind of show someone to

527
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 1: know that there are artwork? Is kind of being you know,

528
00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:58,439
Speaker 1: this is popular, this is engaging. You know that feeling

529
00:25:58,480 --> 00:26:00,600
Speaker 1: of oh, you put something up and a lot of

530
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:02,399
Speaker 1: people suddenly like it. You know, what do you need

531
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:05,720
Speaker 1: to feed back to them that in a more general sense,

532
00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:07,360
Speaker 1: like has has been helpful?

533
00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:08,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, that insight.

534
00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:12,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, but as far as no, like yeah, you know,

535
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 1: I don't think I bought a painting when we launched.

536
00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:21,280
Speaker 2: It's like, again, I take back so much of what

537
00:26:21,280 --> 00:26:23,480
Speaker 2: I've said before about like be your own customer, which, like,

538
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:26,240
Speaker 2: obviously it helps, it helps in so many situations. Completely agree,

539
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:28,879
Speaker 2: But it's not the only pathway. You can literally look

540
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:31,000
Speaker 2: at the market and go, what is a problem that

541
00:26:31,040 --> 00:26:33,240
Speaker 2: needs solving somewhere that I have the skill set for

542
00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:37,119
Speaker 2: and you can make it incredibly incredibly successful. I mean,

543
00:26:37,119 --> 00:26:38,879
Speaker 2: you guys are now I think I was reading and

544
00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:40,920
Speaker 2: this is an outdated article. You have like three hundred

545
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:43,520
Speaker 2: million dollars of art for sale on the website. Oh yeah,

546
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:50,000
Speaker 2: way more now, right, Jesus like, that's crazy, this idea

547
00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:52,600
Speaker 2: from a UNI project in an industry that none of

548
00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:55,200
Speaker 2: the three founders are in. That's extraordinary, It's great.

549
00:26:55,280 --> 00:27:00,560
Speaker 1: No, yeah, I'm surprised, surprise myself sometimes managed to pull

550
00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:01,800
Speaker 1: this off. You still waiting for someone to.

551
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:05,760
Speaker 2: Tell you, oh, it's all fake. So what would you

552
00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:08,280
Speaker 2: say to anyone else who is kind of trying to

553
00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:12,000
Speaker 2: you know, has that enthusiasm, does feel like they have

554
00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 2: a good skill set, but is looking for that idea. Firstly,

555
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:19,040
Speaker 2: how do you know the idea that's going to stick?

556
00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 2: And secondly, as you upskilled? And I think this is

557
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:25,280
Speaker 2: probably the hardest learning curve for most people who go

558
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 2: into business. You will already absolutely have some skills that

559
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:31,600
Speaker 2: are helpful and they'll just be different to everyone else's.

560
00:27:31,920 --> 00:27:34,479
Speaker 2: But you'll always have skills that you have no idea about. Like,

561
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:36,520
Speaker 2: no one goes into a business and just has everything

562
00:27:36,520 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 2: they need already. How did you upskill? Was it mentors?

563
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:42,280
Speaker 2: Did you do courses? Did you? Like? You know, you

564
00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:43,560
Speaker 2: have to wear so many hats. You have to be

565
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:46,720
Speaker 2: the customer service person. You have to learn about logistics, distribution,

566
00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:49,639
Speaker 2: like legal, How did you learn all that stuff?

567
00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:54,199
Speaker 1: Yeah? So generally learning has been a combination of just

568
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:57,520
Speaker 1: scaring the Internet and Google right, a lot of reaching

569
00:27:57,560 --> 00:28:01,680
Speaker 1: out to people who will talk to her those court

570
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:05,600
Speaker 1: or like catch ups with entrepreneurs. I've always made a

571
00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:09,199
Speaker 1: big effort to speak to entrepreneurs who are like slightly

572
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:12,399
Speaker 1: adjacent to what we're doing, you know, vaguely within the

573
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 1: what we're doing. Those catch ups have definitely been the

574
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:19,879
Speaker 1: most valuable learning of the last ten thirteen years. I

575
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:22,199
Speaker 1: have been doing this. When you go and have a

576
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:26,600
Speaker 1: coffee or whatever with someone, anyone who will have you

577
00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:28,640
Speaker 1: who's running, anyone.

578
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:33,960
Speaker 3: Who says yes, because the good ones are too busy

579
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:36,840
Speaker 3: to write blogs, right, and that most of them are

580
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 3: too busy to do to really tweet their insights.

581
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:44,480
Speaker 1: The real alpha of this is working for our company.

582
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:47,360
Speaker 1: We've tried these eight things, and this ninth is the

583
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:49,400
Speaker 1: one that's working for growth or the one that's working

584
00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:52,240
Speaker 1: for new customers or product. Those things they'll tell you

585
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:57,440
Speaker 1: in person, they're not going to they they went out

586
00:28:57,480 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 1: on a podcast, they won't say it on a stage.

587
00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:00,720
Speaker 2: Yeah.

588
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 1: Those one to ones are like, yeah, that's where I

589
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:07,760
Speaker 1: pretty much learned learned all the really key stuff I

590
00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 1: would say, apart from general Yeah, Internet So those two things.

591
00:29:15,680 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 1: That's kind of how we've learned, I think, and and

592
00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 1: just by doing Yeah, like, yeah, I think I've learned

593
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:22,960
Speaker 1: is because like we've we had another startup smart, We've

594
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:25,480
Speaker 1: had a million, We've had lots of We've tried lots

595
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:27,840
Speaker 1: and lots of stuff. You know, we've tried twenty things,

596
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 1: I'd say, Sarah before then the way along the way,

597
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 1: we like, yeah, we yeah, we've had a million dead ends,

598
00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 1: Like we just can't people talking about them because they

599
00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:37,880
Speaker 1: didn't work.

600
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:40,600
Speaker 2: They're the ones you need to talk about.

601
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 1: I don't have I don't have any I'm not a

602
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 1: detailed person.

603
00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:46,240
Speaker 2: I remember what they were.

604
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:49,520
Speaker 1: I genuinely don't. But you've got all these dead ends,

605
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:51,600
Speaker 1: Like I said, it's it's you know, you're spinning the

606
00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 1: Rulett wheel. You got to so the bias for action,

607
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:57,960
Speaker 1: trying things quickly. Yeah, you know, you learn when you

608
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:00,920
Speaker 1: put something out into the world. Yeah, you know, the

609
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:03,200
Speaker 1: rabbit hits the road when someone buys something that was

610
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:06,920
Speaker 1: someone said, you know, like the quickest you can if

611
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:09,719
Speaker 1: you've got an idea, my advice or what I you know.

612
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:12,800
Speaker 1: I think what was helpful for us was not quitting

613
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:14,560
Speaker 1: our jobs to do it. Yeah, it was doing it.

614
00:30:14,880 --> 00:30:18,400
Speaker 1: You know, we had our job yea, And yeah it's

615
00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:20,120
Speaker 1: hard because you don't have as much time and if

616
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:22,280
Speaker 1: I couldn't do it now with you know, two kids

617
00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:25,720
Speaker 1: and everything, but when I had more time. Yeah, you've

618
00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:29,040
Speaker 1: got this time outside of work to work on these things.

619
00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 1: If you still have your other job, you don't have

620
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:34,440
Speaker 1: the pressure on it. Yeah, you can have time to experiment. Yeah,

621
00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:37,880
Speaker 1: it is. It's a low risk. And so if you've

622
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 1: got an idea, I'd say just do it. Just do

623
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 1: whatever you're doing right now and do the idea as well.

624
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:47,920
Speaker 2: That Yeah, so nuts and bolts wise, did it start

625
00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:51,560
Speaker 2: as just the three of you know, other staff? And

626
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:54,320
Speaker 2: how did you get your first sale? Like did you

627
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:56,040
Speaker 2: have to get a critical map for anyone who's looking

628
00:30:56,040 --> 00:30:58,000
Speaker 2: at a marketplace? Did you have to get a critical

629
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 2: massive artists first? Did you already have them? Like what

630
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:05,120
Speaker 2: was kind of the growth or the chronology of U

631
00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:08,560
Speaker 2: three staff, number of artists, number of sales? Do you

632
00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:11,160
Speaker 2: remember your first sale? When was it? How far was

633
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:13,000
Speaker 2: the lag between like launching and then?

634
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:16,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, so those early days, you know they're hard marketplaces, Yeah,

635
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 1: double hard, right, Yeah, so I do remember, Yeah, we had,

636
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 1: you know, we got we got this art gallery website.

637
00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:26,600
Speaker 1: We're like, okay, we'll rebrand it, rebuild it. So that

638
00:31:26,680 --> 00:31:29,280
Speaker 1: took Actually we did it really simply so that that

639
00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:32,640
Speaker 1: that was quick. So we're probably back up within two months.

640
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:34,720
Speaker 1: And then I remember it was probably another two months

641
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:36,480
Speaker 1: before we sold a network, so we only had a

642
00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:38,960
Speaker 1: couple of artists on there. We went out, we did

643
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:41,600
Speaker 1: some cold emailing, and then is that how.

644
00:31:41,520 --> 00:31:43,360
Speaker 2: You scouted them the first time? Cold emails?

645
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, cold email for heaps of stuff. Yeah yeah, yeah,

646
00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:49,080
Speaker 1: cold email. And then I remember, you know, we to

647
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 1: use oDesk a lot.

648
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:53,800
Speaker 2: It's up, yeah, and we still do.

649
00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 1: It's amazing. Yeah, it's like you can get an expert,

650
00:31:56,920 --> 00:31:59,600
Speaker 1: you know, sitting in Europe who's who's fairly affordable and

651
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:01,920
Speaker 1: they've been doing this for twenty years and I need

652
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:04,400
Speaker 1: three hours of their time to sort out my CEO.

653
00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:06,800
Speaker 1: It's incredible. It's like the Internet. I love it.

654
00:32:07,840 --> 00:32:09,040
Speaker 2: It's pretty great that Internet.

655
00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 1: It can there's someone somewhere who can solve your problem,

656
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:16,440
Speaker 1: you know, for like four hours of their time. So

657
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:18,200
Speaker 1: we got an SEO person who said, you know, we

658
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:19,760
Speaker 1: want to rank for how do you sell art? Because

659
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:21,200
Speaker 1: we want artists to be able to find us, so

660
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:23,360
Speaker 1: we start worked on that a little bit. I thon.

661
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:25,200
Speaker 1: It took us two months to get our first sale.

662
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:27,960
Speaker 1: We had a few inquiries and I ended up calling,

663
00:32:28,520 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 1: you know, inquiry leaving number. I'd hit the phones close

664
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:35,440
Speaker 1: to calling. Yeah, yeah, look they sent us a note

665
00:32:35,440 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 1: about something. So I call and are in two months

666
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:41,920
Speaker 1: in someone board and that We're like yeah, and we

667
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:43,720
Speaker 1: it was just the three of us, so fill it

668
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:46,960
Speaker 1: and me for at least eighty months, I reckon. And

669
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 1: we had our jobs for quite a while.

670
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:49,920
Speaker 2: Yeah. How long after that?

671
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:52,440
Speaker 1: Probably around eighty months. Yeah.

672
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:53,840
Speaker 2: Maybe do you all leave at the same time.

673
00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:56,320
Speaker 1: No, I feel Phil went a bit earlier because we

674
00:32:56,360 --> 00:32:59,080
Speaker 1: had another app template business as well at the time,

675
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 1: was selling app ten plates. He went to sort of

676
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:03,320
Speaker 1: work on that as getting a bit more money. We

677
00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:05,120
Speaker 1: had an email business called Sendicate.

678
00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:07,040
Speaker 2: Did you have like starter mail or something?

679
00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then we had smarter mail as well. So,

680
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:11,040
Speaker 1: like I said, we had lots of these things, and

681
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 1: then it was bloody hard. We were putting our own

682
00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:16,720
Speaker 1: money in for two years. I reckon, we have lots

683
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:18,680
Speaker 1: of you know, I didn't have much money. We just

684
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:22,040
Speaker 1: had a job. So we we were funding this marketplace development.

685
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:25,440
Speaker 1: We hired one dev. Maybe we had a sort of

686
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:27,640
Speaker 1: agency for a year. Then we hired one dev so

687
00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:30,120
Speaker 1: it was probably our first hire. Then it's the customer

688
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:33,479
Speaker 1: support and it was so hard and it was like

689
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:35,640
Speaker 1: maybe two and a half years in. It was nowhere

690
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 1: near scale. We hadn't raised money and we were like

691
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:41,440
Speaker 1: at breaking point. And there's this discussion is like do

692
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 1: we just try and sell this?

693
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 2: Wow?

694
00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 1: Do we raise money? And I'm like this, this can

695
00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 1: be big, this could be a thing. I remember, and

696
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:52,400
Speaker 1: there's a discussion of like okay, one of us will

697
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:54,040
Speaker 1: go and try and sell the business, and I'll go

698
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 1: and try and raise money.

699
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:57,920
Speaker 2: And whoever comes back first, whoever.

700
00:33:57,680 --> 00:33:59,720
Speaker 1: Gets the deal first. And so I went out. I'm

701
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:02,680
Speaker 1: like right, and I just hit up every founder of

702
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:05,720
Speaker 1: a big e comm business I could find in Australia

703
00:34:06,280 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 1: on LinkedIn and cold email.

704
00:34:08,640 --> 00:34:10,120
Speaker 2: Wow back to the cold email.

705
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:12,600
Speaker 1: Oh hell yeah, yeah, I love it. And so we

706
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 1: went cold I went to like probably twenty big e

707
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:19,040
Speaker 1: commerce founders you know, Russel and Cogan and you know,

708
00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:24,200
Speaker 1: and we had one reply and that was from Jeremy's

709
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:27,279
Speaker 1: same you know, with that Oh my God, and that

710
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:27,799
Speaker 1: was it, so.

711
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:30,479
Speaker 2: I could one because that's the one that works.

712
00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:32,239
Speaker 1: It was a reply and it was a no. It

713
00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:35,839
Speaker 1: was like oh yeah, and you were like, yeah, yeah,

714
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:39,120
Speaker 1: it was nice, nice little business. But he said, oh,

715
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:42,120
Speaker 1: we don't invest, we just buy them and you're probably

716
00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:44,960
Speaker 1: not at scale anyway. Oh, no worries, you know, We're

717
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:47,520
Speaker 1: keep in touch. And then he pinned me a few

718
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:50,040
Speaker 1: few months later like how's it going, And we'd grown

719
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:52,279
Speaker 1: a bit and I'm like, oh, you know, we we

720
00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:54,560
Speaker 1: were doing the first time I spoke to him, we

721
00:34:54,560 --> 00:34:57,080
Speaker 1: were doing maybe six thousand bucks a month and we

722
00:34:57,080 --> 00:34:59,680
Speaker 1: were like twenty or something. So it's starting to grow

723
00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:02,120
Speaker 1: because the Age had written about us. So we tripped

724
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 1: from that. It's like, oh, okay, all right, and then

725
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:09,600
Speaker 1: we had a call and then yeah, and then Adam

726
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 1: and Jeremy were interested and they came on. And meanwhile, like,

727
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:16,080
Speaker 1: no one was interested in buying this. Here was a

728
00:35:16,120 --> 00:35:20,640
Speaker 1: loss making market, and they came on and yeah, so

729
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:23,799
Speaker 1: they came on as our first kind of angel investors.

730
00:35:24,719 --> 00:35:27,560
Speaker 1: That was three years in i'd say twenty fifteen, and

731
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:30,040
Speaker 1: that was amazing because suddenly we had money to scale

732
00:35:30,239 --> 00:35:33,440
Speaker 1: and it wasn't our money and we could like actually

733
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 1: do stuff, yeah, be full time. But again that was

734
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:39,239
Speaker 1: like I was working this job at out where, and

735
00:35:39,719 --> 00:35:41,560
Speaker 1: I loved that job. There was the only job I've

736
00:35:41,560 --> 00:35:42,480
Speaker 1: ever had. I loved.

737
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:45,399
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, I don't want to leave. I'm good

738
00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:45,759
Speaker 2: at this.

739
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:48,759
Speaker 1: I'm finally good at something I like. And I was

740
00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:52,240
Speaker 1: just there's another thing, is like, is this a huge mistake?

741
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:57,319
Speaker 1: You know? Like, but yeah, we did, I did leave,

742
00:35:57,360 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 1: we did go full time and it's gone. Yeah, it's gone.

743
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:01,040
Speaker 1: Wilson's Oh my gosh.

744
00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:05,200
Speaker 2: I mean I can't believe that even three years in

745
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:08,760
Speaker 2: and after having left your jobs, you still had moments

746
00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:10,239
Speaker 2: of like do we just get rid of this?

747
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:14,279
Speaker 1: Like is this yeah? Yeah? Ament it was like yeah,

748
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:18,759
Speaker 1: you're still like might not be like tech startup takes

749
00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:21,400
Speaker 1: so much money and yeah, it's just so hard.

750
00:36:21,680 --> 00:36:24,359
Speaker 2: You only hear about them really, like they come into

751
00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:27,439
Speaker 2: your consciousness when it's like Unicorn sold for blah blah blah,

752
00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:30,520
Speaker 2: and it's like you forget, even three years into a business,

753
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:33,759
Speaker 2: you still didn't know it was going to be successful.

754
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 2: Like that's extraordinary and that you've got to know first

755
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:38,120
Speaker 2: from here. I love that the whole theme of this

756
00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:42,120
Speaker 2: episode is no is not actually a no. Just keep

757
00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 2: just keep trying, just be impressible.

758
00:36:45,320 --> 00:36:47,480
Speaker 1: We got, you know, like ten silences in one no.

759
00:36:49,719 --> 00:36:55,879
Speaker 2: Focus on the no's better than zero zero crickets. Yeah,

760
00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:58,640
Speaker 2: but I think that's that is also reassuring that, yeah,

761
00:36:58,680 --> 00:37:00,839
Speaker 2: it doesn't again even business is that now you look

762
00:37:00,880 --> 00:37:02,960
Speaker 2: at I mean, you made like a sixty thousand dollars

763
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:05,799
Speaker 2: sale on the website I was reading about from the

764
00:37:05,880 --> 00:37:07,640
Speaker 2: person who didn't believe you could make a one thousand

765
00:37:07,680 --> 00:37:11,080
Speaker 2: dollars sale, like that's absolutely outrageous, But that in that

766
00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:14,319
Speaker 2: same business you have literally considered closing before and not

767
00:37:14,400 --> 00:37:16,400
Speaker 2: just like six months in, but like three years in

768
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:20,120
Speaker 2: before pivotal things happen. And I think it is sometimes

769
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:22,440
Speaker 2: just keeping the faith between the pivotal things that happen

770
00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:25,120
Speaker 2: that do keep you alive until you know, you get

771
00:37:25,120 --> 00:37:29,279
Speaker 2: your momentum. So you mentioned the age, how did you?

772
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:32,279
Speaker 2: Because I think the buzz and like, it's all well

773
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:34,040
Speaker 2: and good to have an amazing idea, but it's actually

774
00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 2: communicating that to people that gets it over the line.

775
00:37:36,800 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 2: How did you launch? Like how did you get people

776
00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:42,399
Speaker 2: to firstly, because you didn't have an equivalent to say

777
00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:45,480
Speaker 2: where the better version of blah. You kind of the

778
00:37:45,480 --> 00:37:48,360
Speaker 2: first people who have done this. I feel like educating.

779
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:50,440
Speaker 2: Like when we started Matchup, people didn't know what that was.

780
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:52,640
Speaker 2: So it's not just like why are we good, It's like,

781
00:37:52,680 --> 00:37:54,319
Speaker 2: what is the thing that we're selling. There's a lot

782
00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:56,560
Speaker 2: of education around that. Did you do word of mouth?

783
00:37:56,800 --> 00:38:00,680
Speaker 2: Was it trying to get placements in newspapers because it's

784
00:38:00,680 --> 00:38:03,719
Speaker 2: e comm Was it mainly seo? Like how were you

785
00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:05,680
Speaker 2: kind of getting the word out to make, you know,

786
00:38:06,520 --> 00:38:07,640
Speaker 2: it into what it has become?

787
00:38:07,920 --> 00:38:08,360
Speaker 1: Yeah?

788
00:38:08,440 --> 00:38:12,200
Speaker 2: So you just cold call everyone and any random number.

789
00:38:12,320 --> 00:38:16,799
Speaker 1: A lot of cold emailing of journalists. That first Age

790
00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 1: article was yeah, tweeted the journalist Max Mason at the

791
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:23,600
Speaker 1: Age because he'd written about art. I'm like, oh, you

792
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:25,640
Speaker 1: should check out us. So that was a tweet and

793
00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:28,120
Speaker 1: a d M and then a follow up cold email.

794
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:30,719
Speaker 2: So yeah, it was a lot of cold I'd love

795
00:38:30,800 --> 00:38:33,120
Speaker 2: that you're such an ambassador for a cold email. Yeah.

796
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:35,400
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well then I started an email company, smart Males,

797
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:36,759
Speaker 1: so yeah I did.

798
00:38:36,920 --> 00:38:40,440
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, well paid back in so many ways, really

799
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:40,960
Speaker 2: good ROI.

800
00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:46,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, like pr is did work in the early.

801
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:49,360
Speaker 2: Days for us, Like you had an agency outsourced no

802
00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:52,759
Speaker 2: we did it, like yeah, like yeah, just you're amazing.

803
00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:55,640
Speaker 1: I'm not literally, I just like sending lots of emails.

804
00:38:56,120 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 1: So yeah, like we found we thought we were too small,

805
00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:01,160
Speaker 1: we couldn't pay people in the early days. Look, let's

806
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:04,680
Speaker 1: just send some founder emails or whatever. But it's sort

807
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 1: of the artist stories are interesting, Like most of our

808
00:39:08,160 --> 00:39:11,480
Speaker 1: artists are not in kind of like a high end gallery,

809
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:16,280
Speaker 1: but you know, the ones that get momentum find massive

810
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:19,839
Speaker 1: success on us and like we'll quit a job they

811
00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:22,440
Speaker 1: don't like and become full time artists. And you know,

812
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:25,800
Speaker 1: we started tracking these like incredible stories of these artists

813
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:29,320
Speaker 1: who you know, had managed to go full time in

814
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:32,239
Speaker 1: their career and be super successful and like.

815
00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:33,040
Speaker 2: Because of you guys.

816
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:35,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, like because because they can connect to the collectors

817
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:37,960
Speaker 1: directly through us, because we had to be collectibates. So

818
00:39:38,960 --> 00:39:41,200
Speaker 1: those stories, you know, really moved me, you know, because

819
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:42,759
Speaker 1: I'm like I always wanted that for my music and

820
00:39:42,760 --> 00:39:45,359
Speaker 1: never got there, and I like love I love seeing

821
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 1: that for artists, like I really do, and like they

822
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:50,000
Speaker 1: you know, they always sort of touched me, like moves

823
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:51,879
Speaker 1: me a lot, and so I'm like, well, why don't

824
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:54,279
Speaker 1: we tell pr you know why don't we pr these?

825
00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:56,360
Speaker 1: So that was good for us, like that was a

826
00:39:56,360 --> 00:39:59,640
Speaker 1: good storytelling thing. And then it was like good old SEO,

827
00:40:00,120 --> 00:40:03,319
Speaker 1: like we're a marketplace and feel my co founder he's

828
00:40:03,320 --> 00:40:06,600
Speaker 1: good at sort of the technical marketing stuff, and he

829
00:40:06,719 --> 00:40:09,080
Speaker 1: used to like lurk on some.

830
00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:13,799
Speaker 3: Funny old buch.

831
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:17,840
Speaker 1: This horrible black hat marketing blog. What was it called

832
00:40:18,080 --> 00:40:22,520
Speaker 1: Warrior Forum or something just yeah, just these guys forums.

833
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:30,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, and cold emails lurking for um just tweet random.

834
00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:31,560
Speaker 2: I love it.

835
00:40:31,719 --> 00:40:34,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, So we just we never

836
00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:35,879
Speaker 1: thought we'd be able to raise money, and he just thought,

837
00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:37,640
Speaker 1: we're going to have to work this ship out on

838
00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:40,560
Speaker 1: our own. So he worked out se O and and

839
00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:43,520
Speaker 1: at work we'd get external se O people to kind

840
00:40:43,560 --> 00:40:45,279
Speaker 1: of do our on page s O for us, so

841
00:40:45,400 --> 00:40:47,319
Speaker 1: show us we're a keyword gaps all that stuff. You know,

842
00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 1: you just find someone like what should we be optimizing

843
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:54,919
Speaker 1: for what blog post? Yeah? Yeah, And so that long

844
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:58,120
Speaker 1: term that that's worked really well. So now you know,

845
00:40:58,239 --> 00:41:03,080
Speaker 1: we have a really strong SEO kind of channel and

846
00:41:03,120 --> 00:41:05,239
Speaker 1: as a markplace, it's really important. So now we're in

847
00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:08,520
Speaker 1: a good position for that. They were the two channels, Yeah.

848
00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:11,960
Speaker 2: I love the I really do love the cold call

849
00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:16,400
Speaker 2: recurring so often in this because I think again that

850
00:41:16,520 --> 00:41:19,279
Speaker 2: whole siloing or self selecting yourself out of things because

851
00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:20,880
Speaker 2: you don't think you meet the criteria for something. I

852
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:23,200
Speaker 2: think some people think, oh, but they're connected, they know

853
00:41:23,280 --> 00:41:25,360
Speaker 2: Adam or they know whatever, and he knows this, and

854
00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:27,919
Speaker 2: it's like you didn't know him at the start. You

855
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:30,560
Speaker 2: made that relationship because you just yeah, because you literally

856
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:32,440
Speaker 2: send a DM and I think, like, yeah, sure you've

857
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:36,240
Speaker 2: got nine no's, but all you need is one warmer note.

858
00:41:38,040 --> 00:41:40,600
Speaker 2: But like, it's true the amount of times that I

859
00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:43,360
Speaker 2: have made networks that now people will assume that I

860
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:45,719
Speaker 2: got something because I was friends with this person, that

861
00:41:45,760 --> 00:41:48,520
Speaker 2: the relationship did begin because of a cold email. And

862
00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:51,120
Speaker 2: you just have to kind of a not be scared

863
00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:53,000
Speaker 2: that you'll get a know or dead silence. What's the

864
00:41:53,040 --> 00:41:54,760
Speaker 2: worst that can happen? You feel silif for five minutes

865
00:41:55,320 --> 00:41:57,919
Speaker 2: and b like there's always a chance that they'll say Yes,

866
00:41:57,960 --> 00:42:00,520
Speaker 2: people are interested, they're really interested in what other people

867
00:42:00,560 --> 00:42:02,479
Speaker 2: are doing, and if they do hear a good idea,

868
00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:04,600
Speaker 2: people love to be involved in that kind of stuff.

869
00:42:04,719 --> 00:42:07,640
Speaker 2: And you've got a fifty to fifty chance that it'll

870
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:09,879
Speaker 2: be yes, So why would you not just take the risk?

871
00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:11,959
Speaker 2: The email takes two seconds, and the amount of tized

872
00:42:11,960 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 2: people have surprised me and come back and said yes

873
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:16,200
Speaker 2: when they didn't know, like now we're friends. But at

874
00:42:16,200 --> 00:42:18,560
Speaker 2: the time, I'm like, sometimes you just have to give

875
00:42:18,560 --> 00:42:20,480
Speaker 2: people a chance to take a chance on you.

876
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:25,040
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And if you're kind of specific with ask, what

877
00:42:25,160 --> 00:42:29,840
Speaker 1: I've found is people you know, important, powerful whatever, like

878
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:33,759
Speaker 1: doer type, CEOs, whatever. These these people often do want

879
00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:36,439
Speaker 1: to help. You know, they've been in your position trying

880
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:38,480
Speaker 1: to get something off the ground, And if you're kind

881
00:42:38,480 --> 00:42:41,760
Speaker 1: of specific, you'll be surprised how often these people want

882
00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:42,160
Speaker 1: to help.

883
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:44,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. I think it's a big part of

884
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:48,720
Speaker 2: the entrepreneurial sort of attitude is you pay it forward

885
00:42:48,719 --> 00:42:51,000
Speaker 2: to people who are, you know, earlier on in their journey,

886
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:54,400
Speaker 2: because that is how everyone learns. It's through like incidental mentors,

887
00:42:54,440 --> 00:42:56,840
Speaker 2: and so there's a willingness there. It's just you do

888
00:42:56,920 --> 00:42:58,560
Speaker 2: have to ask, and you're right, you do have to

889
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 2: ask in the right way. So I also think sometimes

890
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:03,279
Speaker 2: saying will you be my mentor is like, well, no,

891
00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:05,759
Speaker 2: no one has time to be your blanket. Mentor even

892
00:43:05,880 --> 00:43:08,839
Speaker 2: though I really wanted that, I wanted the simplicity of that.

893
00:43:08,840 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 2: That kind of email doesn't normally work. But if you say,

894
00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:14,560
Speaker 2: I know that you're a specific expert in this and

895
00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:16,759
Speaker 2: this is what I'm struggling with in my business, could

896
00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:18,319
Speaker 2: you give me a couple of pointers on that thing,

897
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:21,279
Speaker 2: They're going to go, Yeah, that's exactly you know, my expertise.

898
00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:23,640
Speaker 2: So that's a really good point. Is like, formulate the

899
00:43:23,680 --> 00:43:28,040
Speaker 2: cold email in a clever way.

900
00:43:27,440 --> 00:43:30,200
Speaker 1: Specific you general that night.

901
00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:34,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, going to make it easy for that. So now,

902
00:43:34,360 --> 00:43:36,399
Speaker 2: I mean, you guys have gone from not like you said,

903
00:43:36,480 --> 00:43:39,400
Speaker 2: not knowing what that you'd ever get investors or that

904
00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:41,400
Speaker 2: how well we're gone. That comes back to the staircase

905
00:43:41,400 --> 00:43:43,719
Speaker 2: thing that you weren't jumping through hurdles that were ten

906
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:45,680
Speaker 2: years down the track yet you were just focusing on

907
00:43:45,880 --> 00:43:48,160
Speaker 2: the next thing. And that's a beautiful way way to operate.

908
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:51,440
Speaker 2: But you have just launched in the US. Tell us

909
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 2: about where you're at now, Like, what's what's blue thumb

910
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:56,440
Speaker 2: doing now? What are your big goals and projects and

911
00:43:57,040 --> 00:43:57,880
Speaker 2: hopes and dreams.

912
00:43:58,040 --> 00:44:01,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, yeah, so we've launched blue thumb art dot

913
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:03,480
Speaker 1: Com in the US, So you know, we're a dot com.

914
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:05,279
Speaker 1: Dot are you here? And you know.

915
00:44:05,280 --> 00:44:06,480
Speaker 2: We's a dot com.

916
00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:12,840
Speaker 1: Thirteen years later, we are finally, we're finally into the USA.

917
00:44:12,920 --> 00:44:15,400
Speaker 1: You know. It's the world's biggest art market. Yeah, but

918
00:44:15,520 --> 00:44:18,520
Speaker 1: it's it's the most competitive as well. But the funny

919
00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:20,760
Speaker 1: thing is we a lot of our bigger artists already

920
00:44:20,760 --> 00:44:23,360
Speaker 1: sell quite a lot there, just not through us. You know,

921
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:26,880
Speaker 1: we have like a strong loyalty with our artists. You know,

922
00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:30,240
Speaker 1: we sort of we measure our net promoter score that's high,

923
00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:32,799
Speaker 1: you know. But you know, we haven't had this good

924
00:44:32,840 --> 00:44:35,040
Speaker 1: USA experience. We haven't been selling much there, you know,

925
00:44:35,080 --> 00:44:38,480
Speaker 1: because it's just this dot AU in Australian dollars. So yeah,

926
00:44:38,520 --> 00:44:41,960
Speaker 1: we've launched the dot com. We've got one person in

927
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:45,000
Speaker 1: the USA as well, you actually have stuff. Yeah, We've

928
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:48,439
Speaker 1: got someone there, which is cool and hopefully I'll get

929
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:50,960
Speaker 1: there in a month or two to kind of see

930
00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:53,560
Speaker 1: the lay of the land and say hello, Yeah, so

931
00:44:54,040 --> 00:44:56,520
Speaker 1: that's all happening and now it's just a matter of

932
00:44:56,640 --> 00:44:58,960
Speaker 1: It's funny. It's like, because we've been at this for

933
00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:02,960
Speaker 1: quite a long time, you actually do forget the initial

934
00:45:03,040 --> 00:45:06,040
Speaker 1: stuff that you did, Like all the small bits, you know,

935
00:45:06,320 --> 00:45:10,720
Speaker 1: the beginning, the little things doing every day you're completely forgotten.

936
00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:15,160
Speaker 2: So you especially.

937
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:18,120
Speaker 1: I'm a goldfish. So yeah, we're back to that, Like

938
00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:20,400
Speaker 1: we need to assume no one knows us or cares.

939
00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:20,920
Speaker 3: You know.

940
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:23,720
Speaker 1: What we do is we have some great art already,

941
00:45:23,760 --> 00:45:27,280
Speaker 1: but we don't have the buyers. So it's yeah, it's

942
00:45:27,320 --> 00:45:29,399
Speaker 1: it's close to zero to one again, you know, it's

943
00:45:29,440 --> 00:45:30,799
Speaker 1: er point one to one now.

944
00:45:30,880 --> 00:45:34,319
Speaker 2: So yeah, chairman though, to see if you can do

945
00:45:34,360 --> 00:45:35,160
Speaker 2: it all again.

946
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:37,239
Speaker 1: It's exciting. Yeah, And we've always, like I said, we

947
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:40,640
Speaker 1: always had a chip on our shoulder about a technology

948
00:45:40,680 --> 00:45:43,040
Speaker 1: company in h you know, people aren't doing this the

949
00:45:43,160 --> 00:45:45,279
Speaker 1: right way. They need to focus on better tech for

950
00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:47,040
Speaker 1: artists and ignore them.

951
00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:48,640
Speaker 2: Like what's the masses?

952
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:52,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, like what the norm is in the art industry.

953
00:45:52,200 --> 00:45:56,719
Speaker 1: The art industry sucks. The industry is opaque. It makes

954
00:45:56,760 --> 00:46:00,000
Speaker 1: you yeah, yeah, it's like it's not there to benefit artist.

955
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:02,279
Speaker 1: It's not even there to benefit most collectors. You know,

956
00:46:02,280 --> 00:46:04,520
Speaker 1: it's there to make them feel like shit, So no.

957
00:46:06,920 --> 00:46:07,080
Speaker 2: More.

958
00:46:07,640 --> 00:46:09,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know, squeeze money out of the top

959
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:14,360
Speaker 1: of it sucks. So like, you know, we sort of

960
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:16,520
Speaker 1: driven by a bit of a chip on the shoulder

961
00:46:16,560 --> 00:46:19,680
Speaker 1: there to kind of make it into something. Yeah, so yeah,

962
00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:20,280
Speaker 1: it's exciting.

963
00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:24,000
Speaker 2: Okay, so big takeaways chip on your shoulder, cold calling,

964
00:46:25,520 --> 00:46:32,120
Speaker 2: winging it, getting lots of nose. No, I really, I

965
00:46:32,160 --> 00:46:34,920
Speaker 2: really love that it hasn't all been you know what

966
00:46:35,320 --> 00:46:38,600
Speaker 2: so many big tech founders. It's not the same narrative.

967
00:46:38,640 --> 00:46:41,160
Speaker 2: It's not like I was a you know, playing with

968
00:46:41,239 --> 00:46:43,279
Speaker 2: computers since I was zero, and I always wanted to

969
00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:45,040
Speaker 2: be in tech, but I also always knew art. It

970
00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 2: was the combination of my passion of my profession. I

971
00:46:47,080 --> 00:46:49,200
Speaker 2: love that it's like none of it is conventional and

972
00:46:49,239 --> 00:46:52,920
Speaker 2: that's such a great story. How do you now? And

973
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:55,719
Speaker 2: especially now that you have two beautiful children? A big

974
00:46:55,719 --> 00:46:57,880
Speaker 2: part of seizing your yea is like, once you find

975
00:46:58,040 --> 00:47:02,319
Speaker 2: a meaningful job, and particularly one that is doing such

976
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 2: beautiful things for other artists like you get I'm sure

977
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:08,920
Speaker 2: so much gratification from watching their stories. How do you

978
00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:11,359
Speaker 2: switch off? Do you find joy in work? Firstly, would

979
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:14,200
Speaker 2: you say you love your job now? And what do

980
00:47:14,239 --> 00:47:16,440
Speaker 2: you do outside of work that's kind of allows you

981
00:47:16,480 --> 00:47:18,279
Speaker 2: to switch off? Especially now that you're back in that

982
00:47:18,360 --> 00:47:20,319
Speaker 2: hustle mode, Like, how do you switch off? And just

983
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:22,120
Speaker 2: what are the things that help make you forget what

984
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:24,359
Speaker 2: time it is or that forget you to do list?

985
00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:27,279
Speaker 1: So yeah, I do love my job. Like I feel

986
00:47:27,360 --> 00:47:31,000
Speaker 1: very lucky that I wake up and it feels like

987
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:34,600
Speaker 1: you know, the day after high school finished, when you

988
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:35,320
Speaker 1: can do anything.

989
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:38,560
Speaker 3: You know, that feeling like shit's.

990
00:47:38,239 --> 00:47:40,200
Speaker 1: Finished and I can do whatever the hell I want?

991
00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:41,920
Speaker 2: Sits so much.

992
00:47:42,040 --> 00:47:45,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can now do whatever like it's done.

993
00:47:45,320 --> 00:47:45,840
Speaker 2: Awesome.

994
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:48,160
Speaker 1: I still feel like that. I still feel like I'm

995
00:47:48,280 --> 00:47:49,080
Speaker 1: which on school.

996
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:52,800
Speaker 2: Do you know what? That's actually such a good description.

997
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:54,360
Speaker 2: I feel like that every day too. I'm like I

998
00:47:54,400 --> 00:47:58,319
Speaker 2: can do whatever I want and it's my work. Yeah,

999
00:47:58,480 --> 00:47:59,120
Speaker 2: that's amazing.

1000
00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:03,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, like this mostly how I feel. Obviously I feel

1001
00:48:03,680 --> 00:48:05,800
Speaker 1: terrible a lot when there's stress and all this stuff,

1002
00:48:05,840 --> 00:48:08,200
Speaker 1: but like I yeah, I just have.

1003
00:48:08,200 --> 00:48:10,600
Speaker 2: That feeling of you for twenty four hours and then.

1004
00:48:12,160 --> 00:48:14,719
Speaker 1: I just feel lucky that I can we can have

1005
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:18,080
Speaker 1: an idea and go and do it like it's amazing. Like,

1006
00:48:18,719 --> 00:48:21,200
Speaker 1: so yeah, I do love that. How do I switch off?

1007
00:48:21,400 --> 00:48:24,279
Speaker 1: I used to drink too much nice, so that was

1008
00:48:24,320 --> 00:48:26,719
Speaker 1: that was a good fun switch Yeah, it was. It

1009
00:48:26,719 --> 00:48:28,920
Speaker 1: was fun until until you have little kids and then

1010
00:48:29,120 --> 00:48:31,080
Speaker 1: it's no longer fun having a hangover.

1011
00:48:32,280 --> 00:48:34,680
Speaker 2: No, I haven't even risked it because I'm like, there's

1012
00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:36,680
Speaker 2: it's already hard, dead sober.

1013
00:48:36,800 --> 00:48:40,000
Speaker 1: So No. I used to love, like, you know, going

1014
00:48:40,040 --> 00:48:41,920
Speaker 1: out to the pub with friends and stuff, so that

1015
00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:47,120
Speaker 1: I don't do that. I read. I like reading.

1016
00:48:47,560 --> 00:48:48,960
Speaker 2: We still play bass in trombone?

1017
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:53,120
Speaker 1: No, no, you don't at all. They're under the bed,

1018
00:48:53,200 --> 00:48:57,640
Speaker 1: the instruments. I'm fairly like one track. Like I can

1019
00:48:57,760 --> 00:49:00,480
Speaker 1: kind of only do one thing at a time with

1020
00:49:00,600 --> 00:49:03,200
Speaker 1: my life, and at the moment that's building companies. Yeah,

1021
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:03,760
Speaker 1: I just can't.

1022
00:49:04,120 --> 00:49:06,439
Speaker 2: It's interesting because you can build multiple companies, I feel,

1023
00:49:06,440 --> 00:49:10,359
Speaker 2: like different businesses, but you can't. Yeah that's really coo.

1024
00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:14,480
Speaker 1: Yeah so yeah, that's sort of unfortunately. Like and you know,

1025
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:16,640
Speaker 1: every year I write a list of stuff I want

1026
00:49:16,640 --> 00:49:19,000
Speaker 1: to work on or build or whatever. Like that's actually

1027
00:49:19,080 --> 00:49:21,560
Speaker 1: been a big thing for me. That did change my

1028
00:49:21,600 --> 00:49:25,200
Speaker 1: life as well. Back in twenty twelve, I wrote my

1029
00:49:25,280 --> 00:49:27,839
Speaker 1: first you know, list of what I want to get

1030
00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:30,000
Speaker 1: out of the year, and one of them was like,

1031
00:49:30,440 --> 00:49:32,680
Speaker 1: you know, start a company. And then I've looked back.

1032
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:34,439
Speaker 1: I keep that list in my Apple Notes. I've looked

1033
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:36,799
Speaker 1: back and I found I've actually done a lot of

1034
00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:41,239
Speaker 1: the stuff I wrote down one days. Normally it would

1035
00:49:41,239 --> 00:49:42,920
Speaker 1: take two or three years. Normally it'll be like from

1036
00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:45,560
Speaker 1: two years ago, I've finally achieved it. But just writing

1037
00:49:45,600 --> 00:49:48,120
Speaker 1: it down and having it there, not even looking at

1038
00:49:48,200 --> 00:49:49,680
Speaker 1: much is actually helped to me.

1039
00:49:50,440 --> 00:49:52,360
Speaker 2: I do that every year as well. I think resolutions

1040
00:49:52,360 --> 00:49:54,400
Speaker 2: get a really bad rap, but I find they are

1041
00:49:54,400 --> 00:49:57,880
Speaker 2: a really nice way to track your even if they

1042
00:49:57,960 --> 00:49:59,760
Speaker 2: change that way through the year. Just track your thinking

1043
00:49:59,760 --> 00:50:01,640
Speaker 2: and your goals and whether you get there or.

1044
00:50:01,680 --> 00:50:05,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah and so. But on that for like

1045
00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:07,760
Speaker 1: five years, I had, oh yeah, I start another band,

1046
00:50:07,840 --> 00:50:10,279
Speaker 1: and that's I've never been able to do that one. Yeah,

1047
00:50:10,360 --> 00:50:11,680
Speaker 1: I've been able to do a lot of the others.

1048
00:50:11,760 --> 00:50:14,640
Speaker 1: So no, I'm I like playing with my hanging out

1049
00:50:14,640 --> 00:50:18,000
Speaker 1: with my family, Like I've got two kids, and yeah,

1050
00:50:18,040 --> 00:50:19,399
Speaker 1: it's great. Is that a lot to life?

1051
00:50:19,719 --> 00:50:23,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like you don't really get what I

1052
00:50:23,440 --> 00:50:25,719
Speaker 2: personally have found. And I don't know people with two

1053
00:50:25,960 --> 00:50:27,840
Speaker 2: or like more than one. I'm like, you're actually a

1054
00:50:27,840 --> 00:50:31,200
Speaker 2: superhuman that they are kind of my joy, Like Teddy

1055
00:50:31,280 --> 00:50:33,319
Speaker 2: is my joy. That is playing, that is my play.

1056
00:50:33,360 --> 00:50:35,280
Speaker 2: I don't kind of need to do the same types

1057
00:50:35,320 --> 00:50:37,719
Speaker 2: of play activities at the moment because I do them

1058
00:50:37,880 --> 00:50:40,520
Speaker 2: playing with him. Is that whereas before I need to

1059
00:50:40,560 --> 00:50:43,279
Speaker 2: read or like going, you know, do an activity to

1060
00:50:43,320 --> 00:50:45,200
Speaker 2: kind of help me switch off. But they are such

1061
00:50:45,280 --> 00:50:48,680
Speaker 2: good time wasters. Yeah, it just that makes me forget

1062
00:50:48,680 --> 00:50:51,000
Speaker 2: what time it is because you're so consumed in being

1063
00:50:51,000 --> 00:50:53,680
Speaker 2: with them, which is so cute. How would you say,

1064
00:50:54,280 --> 00:50:57,640
Speaker 2: just as a last question, I feel like a lot

1065
00:50:57,680 --> 00:51:00,600
Speaker 2: of people's journey is kind of consumed the idea of

1066
00:51:00,600 --> 00:51:04,120
Speaker 2: being successful, and like we've already mentioned success and failure

1067
00:51:04,160 --> 00:51:06,239
Speaker 2: and use those words about them around and I feel

1068
00:51:06,239 --> 00:51:08,160
Speaker 2: like it's it becomes a lot of the metric that

1069
00:51:08,200 --> 00:51:11,920
Speaker 2: people use to measure their life and happiness and fulfillment

1070
00:51:11,920 --> 00:51:13,479
Speaker 2: and do you like your job and do you enjoy

1071
00:51:13,520 --> 00:51:16,120
Speaker 2: what you do? Don't really come into it until later

1072
00:51:16,200 --> 00:51:18,239
Speaker 2: in the piece, which is a real shame because I

1073
00:51:18,239 --> 00:51:20,640
Speaker 2: think you can get on this hamster wheel and not

1074
00:51:20,719 --> 00:51:23,080
Speaker 2: jump off often until you know, sometimes it's quite late

1075
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:26,840
Speaker 2: in your life. Do you feel successful? What do you

1076
00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:29,640
Speaker 2: consider is success? And has that changed?

1077
00:51:30,040 --> 00:51:36,120
Speaker 1: So like, yeah, objectively I should feel successful. And you

1078
00:51:36,160 --> 00:51:39,840
Speaker 1: know there's that quote of like remember when you're desperately

1079
00:51:39,880 --> 00:51:43,759
Speaker 1: wanted all the things you have now, so like I

1080
00:51:43,760 --> 00:51:49,080
Speaker 1: can try and reason that, yeah, you're doing well, but nah,

1081
00:51:49,239 --> 00:51:51,920
Speaker 1: really yeah, I just you.

1082
00:51:51,880 --> 00:51:54,400
Speaker 2: Don't feel it. Nah you look at the stage, you

1083
00:51:54,440 --> 00:51:56,239
Speaker 2: have some crazy metrics.

1084
00:51:56,480 --> 00:51:59,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, like no, I well yeah, I sort of.

1085
00:52:02,560 --> 00:52:06,359
Speaker 2: It's already making you so uncomfortable. Is that a humility thing?

1086
00:52:07,480 --> 00:52:11,799
Speaker 1: I think? Like I was talking to someone the other

1087
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:17,319
Speaker 1: day and it was like, should be bigger than it is. Yeah,

1088
00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:20,439
Speaker 1: we're not. We're not. This is not where it should be.

1089
00:52:20,640 --> 00:52:22,960
Speaker 1: And no, I don't know.

1090
00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:25,399
Speaker 2: Just is that the fire that keeps you alive? Though?

1091
00:52:25,480 --> 00:52:29,000
Speaker 2: Some people need that that drive for the next thing

1092
00:52:29,680 --> 00:52:31,600
Speaker 2: that comes out of dissatisfaction with the present.

1093
00:52:33,480 --> 00:52:35,520
Speaker 1: If you're a therapist, that would probably say, you need

1094
00:52:35,560 --> 00:52:38,279
Speaker 1: to know, you need to realize you're enough.

1095
00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:47,960
Speaker 2: Wow, you are extraordinarily objectively successful.

1096
00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:52,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm super lucky. Like I do

1097
00:52:52,960 --> 00:52:57,480
Speaker 1: feel very lucky that I've got you know, what we've built,

1098
00:52:57,520 --> 00:52:59,640
Speaker 1: and also like a really great team. I like going

1099
00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:02,640
Speaker 1: to work with these people like that. You know, we've

1100
00:53:02,640 --> 00:53:04,359
Speaker 1: got people who are a lot better than all their

1101
00:53:04,440 --> 00:53:07,400
Speaker 1: jobs than I am for this stuff, which is great. No,

1102
00:53:07,680 --> 00:53:12,120
Speaker 1: it's really actually it's awesome. So I feel super lucky.

1103
00:53:12,160 --> 00:53:14,520
Speaker 1: That we've got this and that we you know, have

1104
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:17,360
Speaker 1: been able to kind of build this also for our artists.

1105
00:53:17,360 --> 00:53:21,359
Speaker 1: But nah, I just know I feel like, yeah, we're

1106
00:53:21,360 --> 00:53:23,120
Speaker 1: not We're not where we should be, and yeah, there's

1107
00:53:23,120 --> 00:53:23,600
Speaker 1: a lot to do.

1108
00:53:24,120 --> 00:53:27,640
Speaker 2: Yeah wow, Well in that case, in five ye is time,

1109
00:53:27,840 --> 00:53:30,839
Speaker 2: we'll do another episode. We'll check in and see if

1110
00:53:30,920 --> 00:53:34,480
Speaker 2: you are your metrics for that are they financial? Are

1111
00:53:34,480 --> 00:53:37,239
Speaker 2: they numbers of like is there a particular number of

1112
00:53:37,800 --> 00:53:40,279
Speaker 2: users or a number of sales? Like do you have

1113
00:53:40,320 --> 00:53:42,600
Speaker 2: an idea what that looks like where you would be

1114
00:53:42,680 --> 00:53:45,239
Speaker 2: like tick? Or will it just be this moving goalpost?

1115
00:53:45,480 --> 00:53:47,080
Speaker 1: Don't? Yeah, I'm sure.

1116
00:53:47,360 --> 00:53:51,160
Speaker 2: I love that. Nice. Well, congratulations on everything. Do you

1117
00:53:51,239 --> 00:53:54,399
Speaker 2: know what's next? Or just the US? Just focus on

1118
00:53:54,840 --> 00:53:57,040
Speaker 2: Yeah that not just the US, I mean the US.

1119
00:53:57,080 --> 00:53:58,360
Speaker 2: That's an enormous market.

1120
00:53:58,800 --> 00:54:01,080
Speaker 1: Actually two things, so I should mention we've got I

1121
00:54:01,160 --> 00:54:03,640
Speaker 1: mentioned an art podcast, So we've we've launched our podcast,

1122
00:54:03,680 --> 00:54:06,080
Speaker 1: which I'm loving because I'm learning about art and intoing

1123
00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:09,640
Speaker 1: interesting art collectors, which you've been on Sarah and not an.

1124
00:54:09,640 --> 00:54:13,040
Speaker 2: Art collector, but I know I thoroughly enjoyed link the

1125
00:54:13,080 --> 00:54:14,560
Speaker 2: episode that we did.

1126
00:54:15,560 --> 00:54:18,320
Speaker 1: That was a great chat. But the something that we

1127
00:54:18,440 --> 00:54:22,879
Speaker 1: launched this week actually was print on demand, so all

1128
00:54:22,880 --> 00:54:26,080
Speaker 1: of our artists now can sell prints of that's all

1129
00:54:26,120 --> 00:54:28,799
Speaker 1: of their originals through us. Yeah, so that's kind of

1130
00:54:29,160 --> 00:54:31,880
Speaker 1: that's a super cool thing. And like we built this

1131
00:54:32,000 --> 00:54:35,279
Speaker 1: kind of interesting AI upscaler to kind of make them

1132
00:54:35,320 --> 00:54:37,960
Speaker 1: super high res. So you've been working with the printing

1133
00:54:38,000 --> 00:54:42,120
Speaker 1: company for a year to get really really high resolution prints. Yeah,

1134
00:54:42,200 --> 00:54:45,239
Speaker 1: on like a really thick, nice stock. So yeah, that's cool.

1135
00:54:45,239 --> 00:54:46,640
Speaker 1: That went live this week, So that's a.

1136
00:54:46,560 --> 00:54:48,800
Speaker 2: Bit gradual thing. Yeah, that's awesome.

1137
00:54:48,920 --> 00:54:51,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know it's like we look at our

1138
00:54:51,920 --> 00:54:54,920
Speaker 1: analytics a lot and Prince is top ten search term

1139
00:54:55,160 --> 00:54:59,120
Speaker 1: on us in your own yeah yeah yeah yeah, so

1140
00:54:59,120 --> 00:55:01,800
Speaker 1: so that that it's also cool as well as obviously

1141
00:55:01,880 --> 00:55:04,719
Speaker 1: the USA, which is like the big build. Yeah.

1142
00:55:04,760 --> 00:55:08,319
Speaker 2: Oh congratulations. And for everyone who's listening, I mean, if

1143
00:55:08,360 --> 00:55:11,240
Speaker 2: you haven't, most people actually that I've mentioned this podcast

1144
00:55:11,320 --> 00:55:14,280
Speaker 2: too already have bought from Blue Thumb, which is so cool.

1145
00:55:14,400 --> 00:55:16,440
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, this is amazing, Like you know the

1146
00:55:16,480 --> 00:55:18,600
Speaker 2: guy from Blue sum They're like, yes, I buy from there.

1147
00:55:19,320 --> 00:55:22,520
Speaker 2: So most of you probably already you don't need the link,

1148
00:55:22,560 --> 00:55:23,960
Speaker 2: but I will put the link to Blue Thumb in

1149
00:55:24,000 --> 00:55:26,280
Speaker 2: the show notes just in case as well as the podcast. George,

1150
00:55:26,280 --> 00:55:29,320
Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining USAT, such a cool

1151
00:55:29,440 --> 00:55:32,200
Speaker 2: human doing amazing things. And if you don't already know

1152
00:55:32,280 --> 00:55:34,799
Speaker 2: Blue Thumb or haven't already purchased, although I think many

1153
00:55:34,800 --> 00:55:37,040
Speaker 2: of you probably have or have at least heard of them,

1154
00:55:37,080 --> 00:55:40,480
Speaker 2: it is an incredible place to source artwork and find

1155
00:55:40,520 --> 00:55:43,040
Speaker 2: new artist and was particularly amazing for us when we

1156
00:55:43,080 --> 00:55:45,840
Speaker 2: were first renovating and decorating the house. I will include

1157
00:55:45,920 --> 00:55:48,560
Speaker 2: links in the show notes as well as to George's pages,

1158
00:55:48,920 --> 00:55:51,840
Speaker 2: along with my episode on his podcast too, which was

1159
00:55:51,840 --> 00:55:55,080
Speaker 2: an absolute delight to record. It was also so lovely

1160
00:55:55,120 --> 00:55:58,279
Speaker 2: to bond over having kids at a similar age and

1161
00:55:58,800 --> 00:56:01,359
Speaker 2: hearing about the fatherhood of his life as well. He's

1162
00:56:01,400 --> 00:56:05,280
Speaker 2: just such a lovely person, incredibly almost painfully humble about

1163
00:56:05,280 --> 00:56:07,279
Speaker 2: how successful he's been, but I guess that's all the

1164
00:56:07,320 --> 00:56:10,120
Speaker 2: more endearing. I hope you guys enjoyed. If you did,

1165
00:56:10,200 --> 00:56:14,640
Speaker 2: please as always share the episode, spreading the yighborhood, growing

1166
00:56:14,640 --> 00:56:16,520
Speaker 2: it as far and wide as possible, and leave us

1167
00:56:16,520 --> 00:56:19,200
Speaker 2: a review and hit the subscribe button if you haven't already.

1168
00:56:19,640 --> 00:56:21,520
Speaker 2: One of my resolutions this year is to remind you

1169
00:56:21,520 --> 00:56:23,320
Speaker 2: guys to do that more. If you have a second,

1170
00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:25,600
Speaker 2: I would be so grateful, But otherwise I hope you

1171
00:56:25,680 --> 00:56:44,760
Speaker 2: are having an amazing week and seizing your yay