Explaining Some Difficult Decisions

Tommy: It's a very low barrier to get into the Gronk Squad.

Josh: That's crazy! We've committed to do the Daily Talk Show for 10 years.

Tommy: Hi guys! Hi guys!

Josh: Put it in the calendar. I'd just like to cheque the temperature in the room. I told you my squeegee story.

Tommy: It is outrageous.

Josh: Come on, let's go. It's the Daily Talk Show episode 964.

Tommy: What is happening? What is going on? Happy Monday, welcome to the board meeting.

Josh: How are you?

Tommy: Yeah, I'm a bit fired up.

Josh: Really?

Tommy: Third coffee in.

Josh: What's with us matching our hats every single time?

Tommy: I think it's like when you're in a conversation and your posture matches the other person. It's called mirroring.

Josh: It is.

Tommy: I mean, there's a few things you end up not mirroring, but body language, like crossing your arms is very contagious. Smiling, very contagious. Crossing legs, all the body language things. I mean, some people could be freaked out by smiling. A woman once told me when I worked in a gym, "You smile all the time." I was like, "Yeah." Real smiley. Yeah, I do.

Josh: It's a good quality. I've tried to be the smiling guy. It's just not me.

Tommy: I mean, when you smile at people in the street, randoms, I don't know. It depends. Some people just— Everyone's swimming in their own You know, sea of thought.

Josh: So, we're trying to work out what to talk about today.

Tommy: Yeah. I mean, there's a lot going on. But then I guess it's what do you talk about? How do you land on the topic that you want to chat through? And so, sometimes it's not about talking about what's actually happening in your life. It could be a different version. And I think we've done a good job at chatting about things that aren't going on from this year because there's been a lot of hard decisions and things that have gone on behind the scenes.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: That we haven't talked about for no other reason than sometimes this is nice for a bit of escapism or a bit of, you know, just shooting the shit with your mate. Even yesterday, last week, I felt, I felt shit one day, did the show. We just kind of talk shit, felt better.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And so, if you go hard on hard things, talk about hard things in life, that can be, you know, very hard.

Josh: Well, also, I feel like I'm the guy that just talks about whatever's on my mind.

Tommy: Yeah. And I think you've changed over the last 3 years since we've had this podcast. Not in that you are hiding shit, but that you're just understanding where where you're placed to say something? Because do you think it's a defective—

Josh: A defence mechanism.

Tommy: Defence mechanism you use.

Josh: To talk about it or to not talk about it? Can you lift your chair up a little bit? Your headroom's not as good as mine.

Tommy: Yeah, I sunk it down just before. Do you think it's a defence mechanism to always just be saying what's on your mind, pointing out your own flaws?

Josh: Yeah, mate, I think that one of the things that the podcast has taught me is that the way that you feel one day won't be the way that you feel the next.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: And so, if you make all of the— If you're always communicating what's on your mind, some people will only see you on that day. And so, the weirdness is that whilst we have many Gronks who listen every single day, there is a bunch that might land on this single one. And so, this is their first impression. So, some people have some really whacked, whack sort of senses of who we are based on what they've seen of us.

Tommy: So, I feel like you've got a pencil in your hand, a legal notepad. I feel like you're about to reel off a list of the hard things or the things that we not necessarily— that we haven't necessarily spoken about.

Josh: Well, I've actually just been in meetings, to be honest. That's why I've got the notepad. But that's a— I mean, that's a big thing. So, what we thought we would do is on this episode, let's deconstruct— That was my Slack. Sorry. Let's deconstruct The last 3 years.

Tommy: Jesus.

Josh: I think we can focus. I think we can focus on the last couple of months, more specifically. 2021.

Tommy: We could do a little retro. I mean, we're only 6 weeks into the year, 7 weeks into the year. But for us, a lot's happened.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: So, we finished up last year and we had Jess, George, Josh, Tommy, and Mason working in Big Media Company, which is the business, the ship, you could say.

Josh: And so how did—

Tommy: let's, let's start to compare us to P&O, like, where the Titanic, but, you know, they've all gone down. They've all had a real tough run.

Josh: I mean, how would you— if someone said to you, how did Big Media Company start? How would you say it?

Tommy: Big Media Company. Started because there was two blokes who were on their own solo mission. They were on their speedboats and they thought maybe they could bring their boats together and tape them up. So, it creates the illusion of a big speedboat. And therefore, the speedboats are businesses. I had my own production company. Josh had his own production company.. And we thought, well, let's go this together so that at least we have some crewmates off the bat, which is you and I.

Josh: And even if it's been 3 years, I'm not liking your mic technique right now. You're talking, you're talking through the mic like you're almost on top of it. If you just—

Tommy: Sorry, mate. There we go. Yeah, that's better.

Josh: There we go.

Tommy: Okay. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, we're out. So, we've taped our boats together and we're thinking this is going to be more fun doing it together. And we had a similar destination in mind. On the horizon, which is, you know, creating daily, flexing our creative muscle, making a business, creating an environment where people can come to and work and have fun together.

Josh: Can I go back? Very basic.

Tommy: They're very basic.

Josh: Can I go back a little bit further? So, I remember you were doing a video in Queensland. Do you remember that? So, you went to the headquarters of where Qantas started. That was the regional town. I remember we had our separate businesses at the time and we were doing the podcast. We were probably how many episodes in at that point? It must have been—

Tommy: Under a hunji.

Josh: Yeah. Yeah, you're right.

Tommy: I reckon 60-something.

Josh: So, it would have been middle of 2018. We started the podcast. At the start of 2018. Yeah, on January 16th, we'd been doing a bunch of YouTube stuff on the side. You had Frisbee and Co doing video production for clients. I had Full Stack Films doing video production for clients, and we're like, we want to do more making. And so we decided to start a podcast that we could do regularly because we saw YouTubers were starting podcasts. And here we were trying to get our YouTube stuff happening. We're like, fuck this. What about if we actually just did podcasting? And so we started recording and initially it was just audio, but I remember it was, so it would have been 3 or so months into the process. I remember having the conversation. I was just about to head off on a trip to Europe with Bree, which we'd planned sort of 6 or so months earlier. And at the start we were talking about we're only going to— maybe we'll do 100 episodes, maybe after 100 episodes we'll finish up. And I remember specifically, so weird, like what you remember, but I remember driving you from the airport because we needed to do an episode. So, we picked you up from the airport and we went to Maccas. And at the Maccas, do you remember this? At the car park, we did an episode.

Tommy: That's right.

Josh: That was the episode where you actually said that you believe that Sandra Sully was a big smoker. I don't know if you remember that. Yeah.

Tommy: Which I think I got mixed up for Helen Kapalos.

Josh: Yes. Yeah. Anyway. And so, but I remember driving—

Tommy: It's still all unconfirmed.

Josh: Yes.

Tommy: We don't know.

Josh: Yes. But I remember driving in the car, driving you home. I remember being at the roundabout in Port Melbourne near sort of, I think it's near Todd Road, sort of the back streets area of Port Melbourne, going to St Kilda where you used to live.

Tommy: Classic cheeky, you know, shortcut home.

Josh: Yeah. And I remember saying to you at the time, I'm like, what would it take? Like, what would it take for you to finish the production company that you were doing and doing something together? And I remember at the time it was sort of a stressful idea because you started building your first thing. I've got my thing going too. And so the idea of only being, you know, a year and a half, 2 years or whatever it is into our first thing being like, oh, maybe we should try something else. I remember there was, there was a bit of thinking that you had to do in regards to, oh yeah, like it sounded like this big fucking thing. I'm about to go away to Europe. And so the idea of joining forces seemed pretty hectic.

Tommy: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, my analogy of just us in the water as speedboats was slightly different because then it wasn't even about, yeah, we, so we ditched the speedboats we were on to actually go into the water together and hold each other.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And we were trying to float.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And so, yeah, when you look at, when you paint it like that, it's like, which is the reality, it's just not even painting, it's just saying it how it was. There was so many hard decisions that were made back then that took a lot of energy and effort. And then I guess, yeah, what is it? What's the in-between?

Josh: Well, we didn't have that many, like we had responsibilities, but at the same time, if you look at the responsibilities we have, Today, when I look back at them, specifically me, I didn't really have any real crazy responsibilities. If I had a month that I brought in a few thousand dollars, it wasn't the end of the world. Yeah, because I just paid, you know, paid myself whatever, sometimes lived off a credit card, but then could have these crazy months where I'm like, I want to go to Europe, fuck, I need to make 50 grand in the next 2 months and actually get it, make it happen. And so there's— it's interesting thinking about what our businesses were versus where it is today.

Tommy: So, it's a collective decision to jump into the water and swim and make something of it and try and get to land. Or at least it is thinking about what's the bigger game that we could play, which the problem with it is you don't win. Right now feels no, like, no real difference to back then and everything that I had going on then. Do you remember? Because I make, you make where you are now feel as big as it's ever going to be, right? Yeah.

Josh: Do you remember what day-to-day looked like for you at that time?

Tommy: Yeah, I mean, it was of a similar nature but just more lonely, as in from a creative perspective, not having consistency in really anything.

Josh: And so you were trying to find clients?

Tommy: Yeah, trying to find clients for a video production company. So you're doing sales in any way that you think, you know, you're having coffees with people, you're meeting with marketing managers.

Josh: Yeah, um, you know, you—

Tommy: it was learning. It's not even knowing what I'm meant to be doing, but just trying to do something. Which is important.

Josh: The next, how much you want to be on the tools versus how should, should you hire someone, what the deal is.

Tommy: Because you then start, you, you have to be one part talking about the future and understanding. So that's like goal setting. What does the future look like? What I want it to look like. And then there's what, where am I now? I don't actually know how to use a cinema camera. Yeah, you know, at that point it's like, I don't know what this even means. So there's It's rapid learning that is required in those times to survive. And so, do I like this? I mean, I don't feel like if I, you know, thinking back on anything you've done, you're like, would I want to do it again? You're like, fuck no. Like, it was all, it's all painful. All stages are a version of painful, which is like you might take a different option, but that's because you have a different understanding or a different set of programmes in your brain.

Josh: And I think the idea when we went in, so we decided on the name Big Media Company, and it was around June of 2018. And the specific— so I was, I was heading off at the, the end of that month, but the idea was you were going to wrap up your business in the time. By about September you would wrap up, and then I would come back from my trip and would be in business together. And so we registered Big Media Company in mid-June. And the idea was for Big Media Company, it was really looking at the aspirational companies like what, you know, Radio Karate, you know, with Hamish and Andy Ryan, like that sort of model.

Tommy: HeadGum over in the States.

Josh: Yes, it's looking at, okay, how do we we want to create original stuff. We want to be making things every day for an audience. And so Big Media Company was really about doing original work but recognising that we could make tens of thousands of dollars a month doing video work for clients. And so by doing a bit of a hybrid, we would be able to pay our way through the original stuff until we could work out a model. Midway through my trip, that was when we decided maybe we could get Seth Godin on the podcast.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: And before you know it, at the end of September, just before I was heading home, rather than going from Europe to Australia, we went— I went to New York from Turkey or from Greece to Turkey and then to New York. And then you went from Melbourne to— Did you go through Los Angeles?

Tommy: Yeah, Melbourne, LA, LA, New York.

Josh: And so we then met up, interviewed Seth Godin, and it was one of those interesting things where we didn't even have our business. Like, we hadn't— didn't have a website. Big Media Company was only a registered company name at that point, nothing else. And so we would go to Starbucks, we would sort out ideas, think about what we wanted to do, write our bios for our website. And, uh, you know, we did the podcast stuff, which was awesome. We interviewed some great, uh, people in New York, in Los Angeles, and then, uh, we flew home. And it wasn't, wasn't until then, middle October, where I moved into your office space. I'd already left a bunch of junk, classic JJ style, in your office on Easy Street in Collingwood. And so we took over. That went from being your production company office. Yeah. To being big media company's office.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: Um, what do you remember at that time?

Tommy: Yeah, I mean, you're just thinking about— well, I was just thinking about— I mean, I was just day to day trying to, um, I think it's like you're still just like, let's give this a crack. So it's actually just being up for whatever the challenge is or whatever happens moving forward. Because it's— I mean, we spent a bunch of the first weeks of our business trying to work out what it was going to be like. Or, you know, which is— which, when you have a business, there's a whole bunch of downtime where you, you don't actually have any clients to do work for.

Josh: And you're also trying to work on what matters. And so for us, like, we spent a bunch of time writing out things like the big media company values. At the time, uh, you had, uh, found this young guy Mason, who at the time I remember I was, um, when I was overseas, you would do these small videos. Like, I think, um, maybe there was the, uh, uh, for my birthday, September 14th, there was— you got, uh, some sparklers with my, um, birthday on it. And I remember, I think you said, oh, Mason helped me put this together.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: And so Mason was there. So he, at the time when that was all happening, he sent you an email. Apparently sent me an email that I never read, but he sent an email saying, hey, making sense now.

Tommy: You didn't know you were away. You checked out.

Josh: I was away.

Tommy: I was in the States.

Josh: And so he sent an email saying, hey, happy to work for free. And you're like, as a lonely guy doing this thing. Yeah.

Tommy: You're looking for a predator, you know, I'm a predator.

Josh: Yeah. You just wanted people around, right? You had this office space and so you were doing this.

Tommy: Well, sometimes you wonder why fucking people are emailing you and it's— And because it— I'd created enough noise in some— I'd yelled in a direction that someone heard. And so, sometimes you don't think anyone hears you. And what I'm talking about, the noise is like videos online, social media, because at the time you're like, I fucking don't really have much to offer. It's just me.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: When I talk— when you talk about a company with an office, it's still one employee, me, who's the owner. And so it is, it is interesting when you start to have people reach out and, and, um, and, and say things like, hey, can I come and work for you for free?

Josh: And so it was, you know, on Easy Street, above a cafe connected to an art gallery. And your best mate was across, across the hall in his office, Conspiracy Jimmy. And, you know, you had Mason come in and the— I think the idea at the time was he was working on some people's websites and it was like, you have a desk here and then maybe I can throw you some bits and pieces or we can work out a way of collaborating.

Tommy: Yeah, exactly.

Josh: Cheap PC, you know, his shitty Acer or whatever it was, which still did the trick. Yeah. And so anyway, but so that was, you know, when was that? That must have been around August, September.

Tommy: Yeah, August, September. Yeah, it must have been September because then I flew out to New York on the 27th or 8th of September, grand final day, 2018.

Josh: And so, uh, when during that time when we got back in sort of November, December. I remember, you know, there's some of those initial clients. I think we did stuff with Barefoot, Nando's. There were a bunch of clients that we ended up getting. Envato, which was just enough to get us going, being able to pay, you know, pay the cost of what the rent was, buy a new camera.

Tommy: We didn't even own a camera as a business then. Yeah, we were a video production company.

Josh: Yeah. And so we, you know, bought a camera. But the thing that we did on the first week was we put together our values: celebrate others, small things matter, learn through action, the big picture, lead the way. What does that say about the experience, do you think? Or why did you come up with those values?

Tommy: Um, that was auto-generated, right?

Josh: We copied and pasted them off, uh, off Google. No, I think like we had the intention of going big. Well, or at least having impact. Having impact.

Tommy: Yeah. And what's the other option? Playing, thinking that you can't make any impact or create something big. What's the point then? It's playing small. And so it's not that we were like, fucking yeah, we're playing big. But I think it's like we were trying to be very specific about how we would act or show up And then it's like, how do you filter that into everything you do? Which is, it's a, I'd always had slight pushback on coaches that were always like, fucking work your values out. It's like, how do you know? How do you know what they are before you've even got anything? And so where I do understand more so now is what are your values? I think most businesses, the values of the business are a translation of the owner's values and core value, you know, core beliefs. And so they are a reflection of, I think at the time, what our value sets were as individuals when it came to approaching a business. So Small Things Matter is you're very, you know, you're very onto everything and you think that the detail really does matter. And a lot of the time it does matter. The small, small things matter in communication. What you say, a word, how you phrase it, how someone interprets it. As much as it's on them to take it away, but you can still say one thing and have a lot of impact. And so small things do matter in the little details of how, you know, you approach a client, get them a coffee before you start, like all these things. So you can reel that out, which we still believe in all of that.

Josh: And I think that if you were to our mate Craig Harper had us on his podcast, and he was a— and still is a massive supporter of ours. And he asked us about our values. I don't know if you remember it, we were sort of fumbling over that, like it was the early days.

Tommy: It's horrible.

Josh: I love the values. You should go listen, it's pretty horrendous. But we forgot the value, we didn't have the values there. He asked them, TJ's like, I think one of them celebrate others, is I'm trying to find find my phone. But the point was that we felt that, uh, as individuals creating, there's a huge benefit in having people around to elevate them as well.

Tommy: Absolutely. And celebrating others was, you know, I think something that you and I have both, um, done and, and always tried to do. But it's like, who are the people that you can lift up? Like, it's it probably gets a bit boring when you're just trying to elevate yourself nonstop. And so it is like what we've done with this business now is the people in it and the people that we've brought into this show and how we've helped or at least tried to—

Josh: I like celebrate.

Tommy: Celebrate.

Josh: Yeah, I think it's like, you don't even need to say helping. It is celebrating, right? Because it's not even— it's not always about helping. It's about highlighting or celebrating what someone could do or what their potential could be or what their quirks are or what they're, you know, how they act.

Tommy: Yeah, all that stuff.

Josh: But also even things around like competition. We, we've never had a sense of competition with other podcasts, other businesses. And like, I'm really proud of how we've, we've done that. And so when this was all happening, we were doing audio only. So, we're a video production business, but from the daily talk show perspective, we had done 260-odd episodes of the podcast audio only, which helped because when we were in different parts of the world, I could be, you know, I could FaceTime you, press record on my microphone, you press record at your end, and then I'd sync it. And it was easy. Didn't have to worry about—

Tommy: It's much lighter.

Josh: Much lighter work. And so, we made a commitment, though, on the first birthday, January 16th, 2019, where we said, you know what, we aren't going to start filming every single episode.

Tommy: Yeah, I remember the day because it was like we were— I think we probably had an argument about it.

Josh: Yeah, well, I think there was definitely so—

Tommy: Because you realise how much work is going to happen. I'm gonna fucking walk to Sydney from Melbourne.

Josh: Million steps in a month.

Tommy: A million steps in a month. As soon as— if you've decided and you take your first step, you know how many more are ahead of you. Yeah, if you're counting.

Josh: And so we did it. We did a video recording in December. If you actually watch back at that video, you'll see that we're in front, we're looking a lot, uh, healthier, lighter, and just, uh, you know, more vibrant, younger. But if you look on the back, what you can see in the background is a massive piece of butcher's paper. You have a look closely, you can see it's us trying to map out how do we, what is the workflow? How do we make this work? What does it look like? So, there's a little Easter egg if you go back and watch that video. But we decided on the first birthday, that's it. We're going to film every single one, or 5 days a week. And at that point, what we said is like, okay, let's, um, we need to get Mason on in some sort of more formal setting.

Tommy: You can't keep working for free.

Josh: Yeah. And so we had done from, um, uh, from when we got back, sort of October, November, I think, uh, there were a few times where he was doing some of the, uh, show notes or getting it up, you know, getting the podcast up. We didn't have a proper website at that point, so it was just going into our podcast host and it was done.

Tommy: Well, the artwork was banged together. It was just some text on a photo of us that we, that we took.

Josh: Which I remember, which was— Oh, is it? Yeah. The, yeah, the podcast artwork. Yeah. It was literally a photo that we took of you and I in Fonda at Fonda Coffee Mart.

Tommy: You know, when you spot the light and you're like, fuck, we need photos.

Josh: And so we said, okay, we'll pay Mase $50 an episode, contractor or whatever, can do whatever he wants during the rest of the time. And he just gets the video up because it was going to require a bunch more and we wanted to be able to commit to something. And so we did it and it was awesome. And so for the, like, for a good period of time from— if that was 20— 2019, January, February, March, it was getting really hot. And then this is when the office became a problem because, yeah, there was no aircon.

Tommy: Well, it was no aircon, sound. It was a, you know, shit. This, this— it was almost a shared space. So it's a 50 square metre office within a building that has other offices in it. Not exactly like a co-working space, but it was its own little area. And so it was facing problems. And at that point, um, it— yeah, you just want to feel different. You want the next thing.

Josh: It's like moving into your girlfriend or boyfriend's home, and then it's like you sort of feel like, oh, I'm in someone else's space. We need to create something together. I sort of get go in, you've done a great job with the wall and all that sort of thing. But I'm like, I wouldn't have picked this, this, this, this, this, and this. And I was whinging enough about it that I would just send you random rentals, you know, leases.

Tommy: So, I tell you what, you tell yourself a storey to serve your vision or your goals, or even, I mean, let's just think about storeys when something negative happens. I guess it's to feel better about the situation. But the storey I told was, We found a place and it was, you know, it seemed perfect, but then it went off the market and then it came back on. And then I had to come and look from the outside and it's this place we're in right now.

Josh: Yeah. And so, it was double the rent of what we were paying at the previous place. Yeah. But it was much bigger. It was sort of a, it felt like a nice stretch to get into. What the future could look like.

Tommy: And let's be honest, any stretches that create pain feel nice. Yeah, it's after it. Yeah, but I know what you mean. It's a stretch that's— it's in, it's in reaching, it's in reaching distance, but it is stretching. And so that's this place that we're in now.

Josh: And actually thinking about it, the biggest friction was that we would do the podcast at Easy Street and the lights were all set up, camera was set up, and then we'd have to get back to work editing, calling clients, doing all of that sort of thing. And we were, we were literally working in our podcast studio. So it's like we have it like there was no separation. I think that we're feeling that. And so this place that we're in at the moment, the appeal was at a garage, has, you know, a middle level that we could fit out perfectly for podcasts and then upstairs could be work area where we are doing post-production.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: And so once we did that, am I going into way too much detail? Is this okay?

Tommy: No, it's kind of—

Josh: It's good to get out into town.

Tommy: It's kind of nice. And so Mason was on full-time with us then. So he'd moved from being a contractor to a full-time employee. And so there's the 3 of us plus this building, which is basically a 4th person that you're paying for. Yeah.

Josh: So it was, I think it was, there was definitely a time. So I think it was like, from, we got this place in April. I think that's right. Sort of around Easter time. And then I think by sort of the start of the financial year around that time, that was when we're like, Mase, this is, here's a package, this is full time. Let's do it. We, and the thing is that at the time Mason's job was getting the episode up, being on the show, which he did. Like that was, was awesome about Mason. He would, throw himself at anything, even though he didn't necessarily, uh, it didn't come natural to him, which is perfect. You look in radio and everyone wants to get on air.

Tommy: Yeah, you don't want them on it. Yeah, they're the annoying ones, like, like you.

Josh: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, you know, that was a massive appeal. And so the idea was, the way that you and I spoke about it was we would argue all the time, or fighting all the time around like, we should, let's do it this way or that way or whatever it was. And Mason was always there basically sort of, it was He wasn't even really in the middle. He wouldn't really necessarily say something. But I think just having someone else was a little bit of a pacifier in the whole thing.

Tommy: Being able to turn to someone and say, what do you think, mate?

Josh: Yeah. Yeah.

Tommy: Which just diffuses the energy because, you know, they're not going to come out and say, which Mase doesn't, is, well, Josh is fucking right.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: You're an idiot, Tommy.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And so, yeah, you're right. A diffuser.

Josh: And so the idea was that I think what we identified is we were spending too much time on the daily talk show that was paying us nothing. And so we needed to focus on client video work because we needed to have some form of salaries. We both paid ourselves way less than what we were getting paid previously, but the idea was that we needed this to be consistent. And so I think that it has taken up until this time before we've actually gotten serious from a client business perspective. And part of the reason is, so if this is— we're talking 2019. In 2019, so May sort of starts middle of the year, we're like, you know what, we need to give the podcasting thing a proper crack, right? So we've just hired, uh, Mace, and we're like, we're struggling with getting some momentum going. We've got someone who's doing the podcast up, how can we take it to the next level? Uh, and so what we decided is let's try and finally get advertising happening. And the storey that we created, which was a fucking great story, was the way that we are going to get money through the podcast is we need some rah-rah. We need a reason. We need to have a reason to celebrate. And I remember we had Ethan Dedascalo from July Luggage on the podcast. We're like, look at all the amazing people that we're having on the podcast. July, like, they must need content or all that sort of thing. You know what we need to do? We need to travel. And if we can do something like that, if we can, you know, go to a place for a certain period of time, we can create a bunch of hype, send a deck out and say, hey everyone, for the next month we're going to be in this place and we're going to do episodes and you can sponsor for $1,000 an episode. The problem is that the way that podcasting works for the most part if you're looking at advertising, is through a CPM model, which is a cost per thousand model. We've never, uh, previously before this, we'd never played in that space. But the idea is for every thousand listeners, you get a certain, uh, amount of return. And so, uh, for a, for a premium podcast or something that's, you know, super local like what we do, you could ask for around $50 Australian dollars. But I've seen it as low as $15, $20. If you're looking at YouTube, you're getting about $10 CPM for YouTube ad revenue, things that, you know, close to that. Feel free to correct me in the comments if I'm— Yeah, it depends. CPM on YouTube based on the type of content you do. So for instance, if you talk about finance, uh, there's a bunch of people who are wanting to advertise on content that is about making money so you can make more money. So if you look at the top finance YouTubers, they're making, some of them, into the millions a year.

Tommy: But it usually lends itself to people that are getting serious, serious numbers. So any of the big podcasters, yeah, they can instantly make a lot of money.

Josh: And so the thing is that our podcast, I can't remember what the stats were at the time, what were they, $50,000 a month, I think. But the thing is that, so it's $50,000 a month, it worked out to be about $1,500 per episode. And so if you did the maths, we could make a total of like $75 an episode.

Tommy: Oh, big money.

Josh: Big money. Big money.

Tommy: Big, big sweetie.

Josh: But before we made— before we did all of that research, we thought, fuck, Virgin have flights to Los Angeles at the moment.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: For under $1,000 return.

Tommy: Now that's a bargain.

Josh: We've got to do it.

Tommy: We have to go to LA.

Josh: I called a meeting on a Sunday. Bree was out. You and Mason came around to my place. I got my personal credit card, you know, just so we didn't feel it within the business. And I paid the $2,900 and something for the three of us to go.

Tommy: Under $3K.

Josh: Yes. Beautiful.

Tommy: So, you returned tickets to Los Angeles.

Josh: All we needed to do was sell three episodes at $1,000 and we've paid for our flights.

Tommy: Right. That's— the numbers don't lie.

Josh: Yes. And so, so does CPM, doesn't lie.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: And so anyway, we, we were pretty confident though. We were going in November, the first, I think we arrived the day before. Was it on Mason's birthday? November 1st?

Tommy: Yeah, I think, I think it was. No, no, the day before.

Josh: Day before.

Tommy: We flew out Mason's birthday. Got there the day before Mason's birthday. Yeah, yeah, two birthdays.

Josh: And so we, um, uh, we spent— we gave ourselves all of October to sprint to make cash for the podcast. And we said, okay, if we just get— if we even just— if we just sell in our, uh, the weekdays, because we were doing, uh weekend banter at this point. If we do that. And the other thing that we're forgetting in all that time, we also had 3D Dill from Canada who came for 4 months.

Tommy: That's right. That's right.

Josh: He lived at the office, but that's a whole nother story.

Tommy: Well, yeah. I mean, we'd upgraded from someone saying, can I come and work for you?

Josh: Can I sleep at your office?

Tommy: Saying, can I come across the world to you and stay with you for 4 months? Yeah. Which it, I mean, amazingly worked out all right. We have a good friend in 3D Deal. I love him. He's a great dude.

Josh: Yeah. And so, so anyway, October, I mean, some of the things that I was thinking of was like, we need to run a competition as well. I think what we'll be able to do is we'll be able to get some flights so we can actually send someone to Los Angeles. Yeah, right. So let's like all October, we can sort of tease it. One listener is going to go, right? And after the month, after speaking with all of our contacts, all of our like great relationships with people like Nando's, you know, you're knocking on, you know, Cat and Cath's door who have done video work for going, guys, yeah, got a proposition from a podcast perspective. Because we thought it was good. We thought this is, we can actually create great content. We will do vlogs in LA. What more could you want?

Tommy: And so, I mean, that's the thing about confidence. It doesn't judge, it doesn't read the room sometimes.

Josh: Yeah. And so we did that. We, um, we went. Yeah. But, um, the total amount from the sponsorships equaled to $0.

Tommy: Yeah. And which the storey that then comes in at that point is, uh, oh, it's all cool. No, this is going to be great.

Josh: People don't have a good idea when they—

Tommy: sometimes you need to, to do it first before, you know. Yeah, yeah.

Josh: It's like, yeah, We need a— this is a proof of concept. Yeah.

Tommy: But meanwhile, we have a business. We have— you don't just take a $50,000 lease and not have any income to pay that or not think like it's— they wouldn't even accept the people, the real estate. I mean, they might. Real estate agents, I mean, they haven't come to look at this place since we've had it. It's still there. It's still here. But yeah, you— You have to have somewhat of a business, which what I'm saying is that still we're trying to make that work or giving it a 2% effort.

Josh: And so, we did a bunch of episodes and part of the way that we justified it was our mate Matt D'Avella lived in Los Angeles and Matt's like, I want to do a video with you guys. And I remember now at the time being like, you know what? "If we do a video with Matt, the trip's paid for itself. Like, it's fine." And so, Matt did this awesome video.

Tommy: Well, technically it hasn't because it hasn't been paid for. Matt didn't pay.

Josh: Yeah, no, Matt didn't pay. But we got it, like, it was—

Tommy: Can you say it's been paid for if there was no financial transaction?

Josh: Absolutely not. No. Dinner was paid for. I helped her out.

Tommy: $500. Who paid for it? Well, no one paid for it, but it paid for itself.

Josh: Yeah. And so, we— We did a bunch of episodes. We, during Halloween. So, we're there for Halloween. We went on Hollywood Boulevard. Is that where it was? Or where is it?

Tommy: Sunset Boulevard.

Josh: Sunset Boulevard. That's it.

Tommy: They have a Halloween parade every year. Well, they did before COVID So, we had an Airbnb in West Hollywood.

Josh: It was awesome. Yeah. And we just went off and did a bunch of different episodes. With different people from Los Angeles. An awesome experience.

Tommy: It's living a dream. It's because the dream probably involves, you know, having the comfort of it being paid for or, you know, the ideal, the bit of missing from the equation was that it was actually financially paying for itself. It's like just pay for itself and then you've probably got a better version of what we had. But I think this is the thing, you give things a go. We don't do everything for money. Clearly, we haven't done things, everything for money.

Josh: Yeah. And during the time Tully was there as well.

Tommy: That's right. Tully was in LA.

Josh: Was in Los Angeles. And so, I think she'd been on the podcast once. Yeah. And we spoke to her and we said, we've got to do a bunch of podcasts. And we did one or two at the current moment.

Tommy: Yeah, we did. I think we did two episodes with Tully.

Josh: And at the time, like, we went out and partied with her. Yeah.

Tommy: Mason got drunk for the first time.

Josh: I mean, the other thing that we didn't even touch on is just before we went to Los Angeles, I freaked out about the possibility of us not being allowed in with all of our gear. And so, we applied for media visas. And so, we had to go to the consulate. And so, we now have visas. That are well above.

Tommy: We've got 4 years left on it. No, 3 based on losing last year.

Josh: So we got media visas and all this sort of thing. So there was a lot of stress because we all had to go to St Kilda Road to the consulate to, you know, get interviewed at the desk, which about that, which turns out you can get a media visa.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We did it.

Josh: We literally wrote a letter to ourselves about it. It was very easy. And so anyway, Yeah, I hung out with Tully, did a bunch of episodes during that time. We also, you and I were talking about Tully's great talent. Like she's very like just very good at coming up with, how would you describe it? She was just, wouldn't hold back.

Tommy: Her energy is infectious when you're around her. You feel the presence and you definitely interested.

Josh: Yeah. And so, and so during the time in Los Angeles, we were like, we'll do a little bit of client stuff whilst we're away, just like keeping email on top of emails.

Tommy: Did that happen?

Josh: Not really, but what happened in October was we were telling, like, we were going so hard in, we are going in the direction of the podcast that we started saying to clients, hey, we're not doing video, um, here, go to these people, or whatever. We're focusing on the podcast stuff. And then when we had no money come in, we get back and we're like, okay, we're in trouble.

Tommy: Yeah, well, it all has to be paid for, as in lease, people, expenses. And, and yeah, you kind of need some money to take care of that.

Josh: And so then we're trying to like— so there's, there's that whole thing where it's like you need to make sure— so within business you're worried about cash flow.. And when you're a one-person operation, you can get away with doing things like not paying yourself. You can get away with—

Tommy: What can I cut? What's the first to cut? I could probably cut my coffee, or I can probably cut that subscription because I haven't used it, which saves, which earns you money. Credit cards.

Josh: You can live off credit cards for a lot as a person, like save money.

Tommy: It's the quickest way to make money, as in cutting things. And so, yeah, it's a bit different when you have 3, you know, wages that come out every fortnight and a lease that comes out every month and, you know, expenses and some debts. It's like, yeah, it's not, it's, it's not the place you want to be.

Josh: And so we had to have all these conversations, you and I, classic arguing about shit. How we like, what are we going to— we fucked it. We're in our office, we're fucked up. What are we going to do?

Tommy: So the funny thing is it doesn't feel like we'd fucked it completely because you just knew that we were in problem-solving mode.

Josh: So it wasn't, we fucked it, we're going out of business. We fucked it, we're gonna have to have hard conversations. And that hard conversation with your mum and dad, and we said, can we borrow 10 grand or whatever it was? 20 grand. Can we borrow 20 grand? This will see us through.

Tommy: Yeah, he could pull a line of credit with you guys.

Josh: And so we said, okay, we'll pay you 10 back this month or whatever, and we'll split it out. And so very thankful for for their support. Yeah. And so that's 2019. We are the focus. So the fucked up bit is with business is for a lot of people, Christmas time where you want to take a break and relax. Christmas time is where you need to be able to generate some income because people close down. Yeah. And so cash flow wise, notoriously can go one of two ways for most businesses, especially in sort of the creative space. Can either be really, really quiet or it can be really busy. I can't remember what was it like for us in December. I don't think there was— it wasn't that crazy. No, we had a couple of projects.

Tommy: Let's just say the worst quarter of our business was October, November, December 2019.

Josh: The worst, which helped us out when it came to what happened next. Yeah, what happened next?

Tommy: Well, because you roll it, you go through— that was a horrible Christmas, as in a horrible place in my head that I was at. I felt burnt out. I felt— which it should be the time that you sort of regenerating, you know, doing some fucking healing.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: On your mind. But it wasn't other than It was a time that I started thinking a lot about meditation and started listening to, you know, discovering a whole bunch of people that are now a part of my everyday. And but it definitely wasn't a break because I remember coming back in January 2020.

Josh: Yeah. On the 6th of Jan was when we came back.

Tommy: Which we didn't take much time off at all. A couple of weeks.

Josh: And so, the 6th of Jan, like, I think I'd during that time, had been really thinking about, okay, how can we make this work? We need to create— I think I read, um, uh, what is it, 12 Principles of Execution. And so it was all about, uh, wildly important goals. So WIGs, um, scoreboards, uh, lag, lead, all of this sort of stuff. And so I sort of said, okay, we're going to— like, we are getting serious about sales. And so you and I went hard with the idea of, you know what, we need to get our business sorted. And one of the things at the time, you were doing all of our finance stuff. So you were doing Xero, doing all the reconciling and all that sort of thing. And the thing was that we're like, we need better support than this. Our accountant was a shit operator and we're like, we need something.

Tommy: And so having no support from a financial perspective when you're not financially financial guy. Most business owners aren't accountants and you need a great one. And so we didn't have any support then.

Josh: And so Jason Robinson from Future Advisory, we caught up with him and he basically helped us so much in regards to getting very clear on what our budget was, started having monthly catch-ups. Yeah. What do you remember being the key when he started? What were some of the— is there anything that stood out?

Tommy: Oh, I think it's just like a, you know, a couple of puppies that just want to be loved and told that everything's all right or could be all right. Not even is all right, just can be all right. And you have this. And so Jason Robinson from Future Advisory was that person for us.

Josh: He was our unofficial CFO and also like, you know, for that first year really looked after us and gave it, you know, they— Taver as well, who's on his team, they did so much in regards to, okay, well, what do you need to make? Like getting really clear on what do you need to make and all that sort of thing. And so that was in January that we started having that. Yeah, good. And we started having these really great wins and finally we're like, okay, well, we're going to be able to you know, pay your parents back, you know, in a couple of months. Like, we're going to be able to do these big chunks and all of that sort of thing. And there was also conversations with Mace where it's like, okay, what we've identified, having someone like Future Advisory looking over things, we're like, we actually need to make sure everything's making us money or that's moving the business forward. And so this isn't the fault of Mase. This is literally us just trying to work out our shit. We wanted to have him involved. We wanted to pay him a good salary. And so the— but we had to have the conversation where it's like, how do we— the constant conversation was, what can we do to get you making money for the business? And so when we're doing the podcast stuff, we're not making money. We tried to do that during that sort of October-November thing. It hasn't worked out for us.. And so we said, let's, um, uh, let's look at different, different options, like what we could do. What would it look like to have, uh, if we hire someone else that's more sort of a producer mentor within the business? And that can— and we can take some of your salary and subsidise theirs. So get someone that's more senior and you can learn off and do all that sort of thing. And so those conversations were happening in February of 2020. And then obviously COVID happened.

Tommy: COVID hit real hard.

Josh: And so, the thing is that we—

Tommy: But what happened in that time also in the early stages of 2020 was the work and the positivity of, oh, we can make this work. This is just what we haven't been focusing on. And so, if we start focusing on it, it will start working. But at that point, you— that's when we met Jess.

Josh: Yeah, so she started— I think that one of the friction points for us was who's doing what within the business. And so we know, we knew that if we were going to get more work, we're saying to get all this work, the biggest friction was if we get work, how the fuck are we going to do it all? And so for a few of those jobs, uh, we started to outsource more, have contractors. And, and you're very good at reaching out to all, all of these people and having relationships with different contractors. And that's where we found Jess. In that time, in the end of February, early March, that was when the COVID stuff started to happen and we were fairly early to, okay, we're not going to be able to do productions. We know all this stuff, everything's being delayed, all these projects. We've got 50% of some of them or whatever it is, but this shit isn't happening. Some of the projects that we got 50% for this time last year are yet to be filmed. Like, that's how fucking crazy these delays are. And so it was then that we started going into the remote mode. And when we got into it, we're like, okay, what are our strengths? What can we do right now? And where it landed was podcasts. And so we said, okay, let's, let's get the stuff that we need to be able to do it really well remotely. There's no guarantee of JobKeeper at this point. But what we knew was everyone's in the same boat, everyone's in the same position. We just need to go hard, try and make it work and see how we go.

Tommy: They weren't speedboats. Yeah. I mean, we spent nearly $10,000 on equipping ourselves with a remote setup for something that didn't make money. And that's the risk you take because then JobKeeper was announced, which in Australia, if you're not across it, is if you employed people full-time, which is the pain that we went through of having 3 staff members on full-time wages. The win on the other side of a lot of businesses who probably struggled anyway having their employees and paying the bills were given the government support called JobKeeper, which was a $1,500 per employee payment per fortnight. So, it's like $3,000 a month that the business was injected with every month.

Josh: But that was if— Yeah, that was if you had under, what, 30% revenue. Initially, it was the first month. So, the thing is that we had an epic— I think it was February. I think these— I don't know about the specifics, but I think February was like the epic month. And then March when everyone got Gunshy with COVID it sort of fell off a cliff. So we went from, you know, we dropped by 50% revenue or whatever it was. So then we could get it. And so the beauty of that was it took off some pressure because we could say we can focus on the podcast, Mace, we can pay you JobKeeper. We're paying all of us JobKeeper. And that's—

Tommy: I felt good. They made a commitment to 6— the government made a commitment to 6 months. Of JobKeeper as a minimum. So you knew for 6 months.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: But as I think, just if you were a recipient of JobKeeper as a business owner, I worried a lot about what it, what it meant and how, how we were able to get it. And if we could get it, would we have to pay it back? But then you actually have to— you, so you get money given to you, but you also have to— so there's cash flow, which is we had to front the first month as a business.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And some people had to take out loans to front something that they didn't know was going to come back.

Josh: Yeah, you had to pay everyone within the team before you got the money back. And yeah.

Tommy: Which means that there's movement out of your account.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And so, money has to be in there. And so, for businesses that weren't lucky enough to have a good couple of months in the start of the year, it would have fucked them.

Josh: And this was the whole point around smaller businesses that had heaps of employees. If you're a fish and chip shop, and you have to pay, like you would have to pay out that money to be able to get the money. This is where the government at the time was saying you had to take out, go to your bank, speak to them, they'll give you these loans, all this sort of thing.

Tommy: Which you got to pay that money back, too. And so, regardless of government support, businesses still had operating costs. So, ours was about, I think, $5,000 a month and we had to make that somehow. On top of being supported as a business.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And so I think we were lucky enough to have little bits and pieces that happened and— but that was hard. That's super hard, right? And so that becomes 2020, which is just navigating through that, coming out of a lockdown thinking, fuck, all right, this could pick up again, doing a shoot. And then all of a sudden you're back into the brutal lockdown with a fucking curfew.

Josh: Yeah. And so I think that that was like some of the things that we tried to do was we said, let's ramp up the amount of episodes we do because we could do sales, we could do emails and all of that sort of thing. We could have conversations, but clients and potential clients weren't booking anything in because they didn't know what the future looked like. And so we decided we would do 2 episodes every weekday, would do our weekend banter, and would do them all live. And so we had our setup where I had it all at home with my fibre connection and just wanted to mention the Fibre Connection. I'm really proud of it.

Tommy: Great sport.

Josh: And so we, we, yeah, we did 12 shows a week for all of May. And then I think, was it May? I think it was April or May. And then at the end of that month, we're like, you know what, let's stop that. But we did things like Friday night drinks where we invited Gronks onto a Zoom call and we really felt a sense of community, one that we couldn't nurture before because we had so many stresses around money. And even though there was a bunch of unknown, knowing that we had 6 months with JobKeeper, that we could just pay things like us and Mason, we didn't have to worry. And we could, like, it felt like it was out of our hands.

Tommy: Like, discussions that may have once been had don't need to be had anymore because it's on to a new It's almost thrusted into a whole new business direction that had to be decided upon very quickly or just a new direction.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: That isn't— that is kind of what you're doing in business hours.

Josh: And so, then when the first lockdown sort of ended, we were working with Jess. She was still— she was on working at another company at the time doing PR. And we're like, we want to be doing more stuff with you. And she was part-time with them. And so.

Tommy: Same with Georgie Boy.

Josh: Yes, that's right. Hump Day replay. And so, GB. Yeah. So, GB, we saw at the Friday night drinks.

Tommy: Oh, that's right. The in-person Friday night drinks.

Josh: Was that in February or January?

Tommy: Jan or Feb. Yeah. I think it was Jan because Glenn, who is a gronk from Florida, Aussie dude, was in Melbourne.

Josh: That's right.

Tommy: That's right. And so, yeah, we had a Friday night drinks. At a place at Moondog Brewery.

Josh: And so GB was really, for us, represented us getting into production because with what we hired Mason to do, it was about show notes and websites and getting the podcast out there. But what we felt like we needed was more production people. We needed sales, we needed editors, we needed people who could work within the business that would generate income. And so throughout all the lockdown, we were able to make it work with JB, where he got to do Hump Day Replay, which was every Wednesday he would do a highlights package of the week. And when there were times where you could work from offices as a single person or whatever, and he could come into the office at some, some stages when his other work was shut down and all of that sort of thing. So it worked out really well.

Tommy: JB had that, had our It was his entire office. Yeah. And so it was for Jay Ben.

Josh: And so when things started to open up in around August, we started saying, okay, we have just done so much in regards to the daily talk show with the podcast. We were seeing the numbers going up and, and we started talking about, okay, well, what if we like, if we did this properly, what would it look like if we were to actually— how could we sell ads?. And one of the things that was coming up was the power of having multiple podcasts to be able to sell in. And so at that point we thought Tully had just like we'd caught up with her in LA the year before. We, we knew that she'd finished her podcast with Mamma Mia! and we thought that she was just like an opportunity to be able to give her her own show. The podcast she did with Mamma Mia was behind another brand, which was Social Squad, and it was interviewing. And we always thought that Tully wasn't an interviewer. Tully is best when she's holding the floor and being herself. And so when we had conversations with Tully, obviously at the start, it's very hard with podcasts to make this work out from a money perspective. The thing is, she didn't really care about money, and we didn't care about money either. And so what we did is we just put together a contract where we said, we're going to do 50/50 on all ad revenue, we'll do all the production, and then if you feel like in, you know, 2 years' time, if this has gotten really big and you want to take it somewhere, uh, we'll just put together a fee. So it was a token fee of like $800 an episode. Uh, you could just pay that, what, however many episodes, and you basically you get the podcast, you get the IP, all that sort of thing. We didn't cheque it, like we didn't— the contracts with this sort of thing is more of a token thing just to have something written down. And when we had the meeting with Tully, one of the things we were talking about is like, who could we get to produce? Like, who could we get on air?

Tommy: And it was actually sounding board or another person in the room. Yeah, it always helps rather than doing a podcast solo where you're just in a room by yourself, it's a bit lonely. It's nice to even just have a person in the room to throw something to. What do you think about that?

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And we needed that person.

Josh: And so Jess was contracting with us at the time.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: And she sat in on that and Tully said, oh, well, I just, I assumed that it would be Jess.

Tommy: Yeah, I think that was it.

Josh: Yeah. And then it's actually like, I don't know if like Mason's the right fit because like there was always funny banter with Mason and Tully on the podcast or whatever, which worked for the Daily Talk Show, but we didn't know if it would sustain what we were trying to get out of Too Much Tully. Yeah, I remember coming up with— when we're coming up with the ideas, like, we would— we came up with this whiteboard where we would go through and ask all these questions of a few different creators that we did it with, and one of them was Tully, where we asked, you know, what your biggest challenge was, basically sort of coached through a process and we came up with a name. And I remember she was saying, you know, I feel she used the word unlovable. I'm like, what about the podcast Unlovable? And she's like, I think it's a bit dark. Bit sad.

Tommy: Bit sad.

Josh: And so we landed on—

Tommy: Everybody hates me. Imagine that podcast.

Josh: And so we landed on Too Much Tully and we thought at the time that we'd be able to do it in person. And we did.

Tommy: Well, yeah, because it was— this was out the first lockdown.. And so, the between that and the really severe lockdown. And so, episode 1 and maybe 2, which is just one that was done in studio.

Josh: Yeah, I think there might have been a couple. And so, we had set up when we'd gone from remote to being back in, we created this sort of like COVID safe space where we sort of had our desks separated and Tully did the podcast from there. And so, what we did was we had that podcast and then just before lockdown. I think it's actually still on our board. If you look, if you came into the Daily Talk Show today, into our offices in the studio, you will see a board that says, "Welcome, Tony Lodge." Oh, yeah, that's right.

Tommy: It's still here. It is still. And I moved the board yesterday. Yeah.

Josh: And that is because Tony was like one of the last people we had in studio. I think we actually did it during that COVID break.

Tommy: That's right.

Josh: You know, after lockdown. And so I was really like wrapped with Toni and we all felt like she had an energy, she had sort of an ambition. She was funny. She ticked so many boxes in regards to having a podcast. And we said to her, you should start a podcast, like whichever way it is, like whether you do one with, you know, your current employer or you do one with us, whatever, you should do a podcast. And so she asked permission from her employer, can I, is it cool if I do something with these guys? And, you know, they were gracious and said yes. And so she came into our office and we ran her through the exact same process that we did with Tully. And that was where we came up with One Trick Tony. And at that time, that was when we said, okay, producer-wise, what are we thinking? And it made sense, uh, Mason would, uh, be able to be what, what Tony wanted was someone that wasn't too crazy, too out there, going to take over. And that's what we always admired about Mason was he was a contributor, but he also would read the room and he wasn't always fighting for the mic.

Tommy: It was just genuine. And he's, and he's honest. He's who he is. You ask him to give you an answer about something, he'll tell you honestly.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: In a naive way that is so endearing. Like, there's an endearing nature to someone who is just saying what they see or what it's about.

Josh: And so, this is all around August, September. We go back into lockdown. I think it was in September. Yeah, because I had my 30th birthday in lockdown.

Tommy: Did you?

Josh: Yeah. And we started doing all of the podcasts remote. Uh, at the time, Jess wasn't working with us, uh, full-time, but we had a conversation where we said, okay, if we're getting our JobKeeper or whatever, we're freed up a little bit of cash, we really want you on the team as our general manager to push sales. And so Jess had a bunch of wins, uh, in September and in August, and we, we worked with some, uh, great brands where we were doing podcast advertising on Tully's show, on the Daily Talk Show. And the other thing too, George was doing Hump Day Replay. So we said, George, why don't we turn what you're doing, just to flex a different muscle, do it as a podcast? And we got to watch every single week George was putting together Hump Day Replay and bringing in Gronks and doing all that stuff. It was awesome. And then it got to October.

Tommy: Out of lockdown.

Josh: Out of lockdown. And we're trying to work out, okay, like, let's get into this. I'm trying to think. I feel like a bit of a blank of what happened in October.

Tommy: Well, I think there was an energy that people had that they were like, I want to get my fucking life back to normal, even though shit's not normal. But it's like, let's act as if it is. Because what else have you got? And so, the business, our production business actually ramped up.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And so, we did land a bunch of jobs that got us out of the lockdown. And so, you're moving from the mindset of a completely different business model, essentially, to back into doing video production. For brands, plus the other business model that you actually just created for the last 6 months and found a cadence with. And, and so then we're all back in and it's just keep focusing on that, focusing.

Josh: And I think that the thing that we identified, if we learned anything from the year prior with Los Angeles, with our podcast, was without focus we're fucked. And so if we focused on too many areas, we couldn't succeed. And what I felt like we did was we had Jess who was coming in in this senior role as general manager but was also managing, producing Tully's podcast and also then selling in, uh, ads. So we, we invested in our technology for our dynamic ad insertion, and we, uh, we created a a separate sort of pillar of the business called AdPod where people could advertise with us.

Tommy: AdPod.com.au.

Josh: Did you get .com? No, no, only .com.au. More of an Australian play. And so during that time, during October, November, we realised of like, okay, we're starting to get more production work. This is going to happen like this is, this is working. And so we need George, we need GV to be able to be doing editing. He was getting near the end of his agency contract and so we offered him a full-time role in middle of December and said, hey, can you do it? Can you start mid-Jan?

Tommy: And so, so then at that point you've— we've— we now have 5 employees on full-time salaries.

Josh: Yeah, yeah. And so we're paying ourselves through JobKeeper. We had, because of our fucked month in October, November, December, like that quarter.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: Um, the following year we were fine until then to get into JobKeeper 2.0. No, so that's right. So no, because we had a fucked month, we could— October, November, December was so low for 2019 that we knew that we would be ramping up. So we had JobKeeper we knew until the end of September, but October, November, December was gonna be our last time on JobKeeper before we were full, you know, full-blown paying salaries ourselves in January. And so, uh, during all of that time, we're trying to work out, can we get this podcast stuff going? We had goals around how much each podcast needed to make in, in revenue, and it was connected to CPM. And so if you don't get— if you can't get more downloads, some of the other things you can do is put more ad spots. So you could have pre-roll, you can have mid-roll, you could put 2, 2, uh, pre-roll, 2 mid-roll, all of this sort of thing. And what we're finding was the podcast advertising side of things, uh, was a lot harder, or it was taking time versus with our video stuff, we could be making significantly more, uh, without as much hassle doing the video production stuff. And so if we learn anything from a focus perspective, we're like, okay, it doesn't make sense that we're doing all of this, uh, the amount of podcast stuff we're doing. One of the things we spoke about is maybe we get a bigger space, maybe we could be doing podcasts in a bigger way, but we're not like— we don't have the runway that we would like to be able to do it and not be tensing our arseholes the whole time because because, you know, we've tensed our assholes pretty tightly over the years, and you know what that can create. And so we, um, uh, there was a bunch. So, uh, Mason took a break to go to WA, and during that time— yeah, through December and Jan— and during that time, uh, we hadn't made— like, there was no decisions around what we were— which way we were going to go. What we're going to do. Like, we, we knew, like, we, we're confident that this is going to be— 2021 is going to be a great year. But there were some decisions that we had to make, and it wasn't until, uh, I'm guessing it was what, mid-Jan, where before Mace had gotten back, where, uh, you and I had some hard conversations around how can we make all of this work.

Tommy: Because what you, what you're coming out of is the podcast stuff that we'd created, which was thrusted and sort of brought forward based on COVID, plus the production company that we'd actually made ramp up and, and, you know, allowed us to even take some time off over December. Coming from 2019's December-January, like, break, which was hell, to December 2020 to 2021, which actually was able to, you know, give us time to disconnect or at least just take 3 weeks off after a horrible year. And so, yeah, that start to 2021 is putting our heads together because we had just come up for air after the year that was and all the things that were going on. So, those decisions and the conversations in January only happened in January based on— that's the only time that we actually could come back to each other after, like, everyone needing a break. Everyone needed a break. Yeah.

Josh: And so we, we had that break, and I think that the key thing that I was wary of is I wanted us to be focused, and I wanted to create success for everyone in the team, be very clear on like, this is where we really want to go with things, and make it super clear. And the thing that we both identified is it's like having our general manager who can do so much in the way of sales, that can do so much in regards to moving the business forward, which Jess can do and has done. Having her involved in doing a podcast, having her, uh, time, all of that energy for, uh, for a pillar of the business that we, we didn't look at in a positive light for the coming 6 months in regards to what we could do from a revenue perspective. That was a difficult time. And I think that during that time we also started to look at all of the awesome stuff that Mason had done in 2020. But what we'd also discovered is that during all of that JobKeeper time, all of those shows, we'd never fixed the issue that we had at the start of 2020, which is how can we have a role that makes us money through what Mace does. And so in all of that process, we went through a bunch of things. And, and this is what, like, this is why I think business is really hard, because there's a part of you which just wants to make things work. And so you're like, yeah, let's keep doing the pod— like, Jess loved doing the podcast. Like, you know, everyone loves having Mason around. Like, let's, let's just do what we've been doing. And then you think about you think about LA, like after that and just the stress that we had and the responsibilities. And one of the things with having Mason on was we felt when we hired Mace, and this was true because, you know, he would reflect this, he was always great around our struggles, was he didn't need a great deal of money. He didn't need— so if, if, if the company shit the bed or whatever, it wasn't the end of the world. It would be really annoying.

Tommy: Yeah, very annoying.

Josh: But, but I— but having George come in, having Jess come in, these reflected and represented to us going in the direction of being a really solid business that can do great video production work. But we'd made a bunch of decisions that were focused on the podcast stuff that we needed to reconcile before we could move forward. And so we went through all of the decisions. Part of the decision, one of the decisions we had was, what about, um, like with, um, what we spoke about with Mace, uh, at the start of 2020? What about if we got Mace into that sort of mentee role with Jess and Jess could mentor him and all that sort of thing? We, we made the decision that by doing that, we weren't keeping that focus for Jess to be able to focus on her core competencies, all of that sort of, that sort of thing. And so we realised we just don't have— we just would be rolling a dice and we just wouldn't be clear. And so we made the hard decision to make Mason's role redundant, which wasn't easy. And as soon as we worked out that— and when I say we made Mason's role redundant, I think you don't make a person redundant. No way. He had a specific role within the business that we created that he went with, but that was a different time to where we are today. And so I called him when he was in WA and said, hey mate, this is, you know, this is what the deal is. And so, you know, not easy things to do.

Tommy: No way. I think, I think what we've done is we've done a great job of making ourselves really fucking uncomfortable. And, and by putting ourselves in positions that aren't really great for everything that we're doing, which I don't think serves anyone like, you know, top down, because if the business is in pain, everyone else is going to fucking feel the effects like Mason did and stayed with us for all that time. And so, yeah, the real shitty thing about hard decisions are that they're so fucking hard.

Josh: And I think the other thing too is we, we went for a clear response, a clear way forward. So I think that, yeah, it's easy in these difficult times to end up landing in ambiguity, landing in uncertainty because you're like, oh, we want to keep you around, so let's get you part-time. Or that's all we—

Tommy: That's our want, right? That's like catering to, I want him around, but that's not that clear because we're actually being clear about something else except that.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And so, that's where, yeah, I think the decision was even made more hard by how I felt about him and, and what he'd brought and done for us and the people and the energy that he brings. And so he was fucking gutted.

Josh: And so that was a very hard conversation. And that was one that— and, but, and like, uh, there's— I think the, the clear thing is, you know, people worry about optics. I don't think So the only optics that we were worried about or thought about was how can we make this the best thing for Mace in regards to how we communicate it? And so part of that was, mate, do you want to come on for a Fat Friday celebration? What do you want? And the thing is, because we had sort of led a lot of the podcast stuff, the role, there wasn't necessarily an attachment that he had personally to all of those things. And so it wasn't like he was going to straight away go on to another podcast role or whatever it is. You know, he's 21, he's got so many, you know, areas that he could go into. He can— he still has the opportunity to, to work out and design what he wants to do. And so that was the main concern we had is, how do you feel? What do you want? How can we make this the best experience for you? And I think that which makes sense. His decision was to do great work on the final couple of weeks that he was with us, you know, getting everything organized, and then just sort of quietly taking that break. But then there was also the conversation. So with, uh, with One Trick Tony, Tony was doing a lot of the heavy lifting in regards to content tech, all of that sort of thing. She was very sort of set and forget. You know, she had the support with Mace, but it didn't require much from us. And so there was a clear distinction where it's like, uh, Too Much Tully has Jess, has, you know, you were executive producer. We were doing a lot, like we were investing a lot of time.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: And, um, we felt that we couldn't, uh, do that. And I think that like, that's hard for Jess. Like, I think that Jess, uh, would have liked to have made— I know she would have liked to make it work. She would have liked to continue to do the podcast, but she also, with her GM hat on, with her like thinking about us, about the business and all that sort of thing, understood where we had to go with it. And so with Tully, you know, we spoke about the contract stuff we just put that aside because it was, it was never about money for any of us. And so we said, Tully, here's the podcast, here's all the assets, everything that you need. We know you can go somewhere else. We can, we know that you can, you could take this on your own. You could, you could take this to, to your best friend Jen, Jen Day, who does podcasts and that sort of thing. There's fucking every network under the sun. That would, would have you just— here it is, we, we've done 22 episodes of the podcast and it made money. Yeah. And it just— and so there is, there's a business in it, but it's just it at the time in 2021 where we're at, it's not in our business where we're doing stuff. So that's a hard conversation. Uh, but I think that we've done all— had all these conversations in a way where we walk away friends with everyone. You know, we keep our relationships.

Tommy: I think anything that we've done, we've tried to think about what's— So, think about what our need is and what's the right decision for us, but then also what's the best thing for the person. So, for Tully and us not doing too much Tully anymore, it's the best thing for Tully is her to continue doing the thing that she loves. And let's not, you know, let money get in the way. Have it. Yeah, that's the easy— that's the easiest but best outcome for her.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And our version is a hard decision, which is to stop doing something that, you know, we'd built up and created and, and, you know, people really got value out of and, and stopping that. And so, yeah, it's a fucking weird thing to Like hard decisions, it's, um, you— I feel that you can be swayed by how they make you feel, but that isn't necessarily right. So, you can make a decision when you know it's right on paper, but it can feel not right.

Josh: Well, you can speak like when we spoke to a bunch of people, people close to us, they would say, How could you do things without Mace? How could— like, how could you make this work? Why? I thought you were creating this or doing that. And that's hard to take on. But I think that this is— I believe, and this is just a storey that I've created— I think that this is what we needed to do and what we need to do to have not only a successful business, But if we really want to celebrate people, if we really want to do that, we need to have a successful foundation. We need to know, we need to create security for people, we need to be responsible. And so for celebrating others in 2021, for us, it's about, you know, putting our big boy pants on and saying, you know what, like even though you will get a bunch of praise for going to LA, there's nothing better than having the security to be able to celebrate others and knowing that you're not going to shit the bed.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, I think that's, um, I think that's, uh, wrapped— summed it up about what the changes.

Josh: And so, uh, just to recap, so it started in 2018, but I will say—

Tommy: sorry, no, we haven't mentioned mentioned this Mason stuff on the show. We've written, uh, Josh wrote a great, um, explanation of, you know, because people are saying, where's Mason? Mason was an integral part of this show.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: For hundreds and hundreds of episodes. Um, and then we— I feel that there can be some word salad happen, uh, when we haven't thought about it.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And so it's been nice to write something, put it out on Instagram. Actually, think about what Mason wanted, which was he wanted us to tell it how it is.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: I mean, other than us saying, do you want it to be said anyway? Do you want us to say that you are going out on your own to do your own thing and friend people and send people your way? Which I'm not in— we're not in the business of saying things how they aren't.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: But it's also how do people want situation to play out.

Josh: Yeah. And so 2021, where we have sort of landed with it all, is throughout all of this, the last few years with the business, we've had some assets through Full Stack Films, my old business that was generating a bunch of leads and, you know, the website people were finding, finding us. And there was— it's always hard to describe to a client, yeah, we do video production. If you go to the BMC website, it's a bit confusing because there's a bunch of podcast stuff. But we can do videos for you. And so what we've done is drawn a line in the sand. We've brought Full Stack Films in to, to the business. And so all that means is that when we're interacting with clients, when we're speaking to them, we can speak their language, we can speak directly to helping them with video production, and we can build a really great business through doing that. One of the pillars And then once we've done that, and it's only 6, 12 months of doing that, that we'll really see the effect and be in a great position to then start to slowly turn on some of that strategic thinking that we have always had around what we want to do, which there is no doubt we want to create original content. We want to be doing more podcasts. We want to be celebrating people. But there is a little bit of walking before you're running. And that's always a hard thing to say because we're not the guys to— I'm not the guy to ever do that. I'm the guy to go full on and do a marathon before I've done a single step.

Tommy: But you get Ojgood's ladders by the end of it, you know, your shins are fucked.

Josh: And so I think that like, even though this is all sad and it's also, you know, impacted a bunch of people, there is a huge positivity or a huge positive thing to come out of this, which is we're very clear on what we need to do. We, you know, we're feeling very confident with what we're focusing on and we can do things in stages. And, you know, in 6 or 12 months' time, podcast stuff, you know, original video content, documentaries. All of these things will start to come back into the conversation, but we need to do it for ourselves and we need to do it for the people around us to focus on one thing at a time. Exactly right.

Tommy: Spot on.

Josh: Hi@thedailytalkshow.com is the email. Yeah, send us an email if you've, uh, got any thoughts, any questions. Uh, yeah, enjoy the rest of your day. We'll see you tomorrow, guys. Have a good one.

Tommy: See you guys.