Tommy Jackett: [00:00:00] Very low barrier to get into the ground spot.
Josh Janssen: [00:00:07] We've committed to do the daily talk show for 10 years. I had guys in the calendar just like to check the temperature in the room. I told you my squeegee story.
It's the daily talk show episode 964. What
Tommy Jackett: [00:00:23] is happening? What is going on? Happy Monday. Welcome to. Uh, at the board meeting, how are you? Yeah, I'm a bit fired up, really.
Josh Janssen: [00:00:32] So coffee in what's with us matching our hats every single time. Uh, I
Tommy Jackett: [00:00:37] think it's like, uh, when you're in a conversation and your posture matches the other person that's called mirroring, it is, I mean, there's a few, few things you end up not mirroring, but body language like crossing your arms is very contagious.
Um, 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.
Josh Janssen: [00:01:06] I was like, yeah, real smiling. I do. It's a good quality. I've tried to be the smiling guy. It's just not me. And when you
Tommy Jackett: [00:01:13] smile at people in the street, randoms, I dunno.
It depends. Some people just. Everyone's everyone's swimming in their own, you know, sea of thought.
Josh Janssen: [00:01:24] So we're trying to work out what to talk about today.
Tommy Jackett: [00:01:27] Yeah. I mean, there's a, there's a lot going on, but then I guess it's um, 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. Uh, going on from this year, cause there's been a lot of hard decisions and things that have gone on behind the scenes that we haven't talked about for no other reason.
Then sometimes this is nice for a bit of escapism or a bit of, you know, just shooting the shit with your mate even yesterday. Um, last week I felt, I felt shit one day, did the show, we just kind of talk shit felt better. Yeah. And so if you go hard on hard things, talk about hard things in life that can be, you know,
Josh Janssen: [00:02:23] very hot.
Also, I feel like I'm the guy that just. Talks about whatever's on my mind. Yeah. And I think you've,
Tommy Jackett: [00:02:31] um, changed over the last three years since we've had this podcast, not in that you are hiding shit, but that you just understanding where, where you're placed to say something, because you got to figure a defective, a defense.
My defense
Josh Janssen: [00:02:47] mechanism mechanism used to talk about it or to not talk about it. Can you lift your chair up a little bit? Your head? Room's not as good as mine
Tommy Jackett: [00:02:53] sunk it down just before. Do you think it's a defense mechanism to always just be saying what's on your mind that pointing
Josh Janssen: [00:03:02] at your own floors. Yeah.
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. And so if you make all of that, if you, 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 Kroenke's who listen every single day, There's a bunch that might land on this single one.
And so this is their first impression. So some people will have some really whacked, whack sort of senses of who we are based on what they've yeah.
Tommy Jackett: [00:03:38] St of us. So I feel like you've got a pencil in your hand at legal notepad. I feel like you were about to reel off a list of the hard things or the things that we need.
Not necessarily that we haven't necessarily spoken about.
Josh Janssen: [00:03:51] Well, I've actually just been in meetings to be honest. That's why I've got that. But that's a bit, I mean, that's a big thing. So what we, what we thought we would do is on this episode, let's deconstruct. That was my Slack. Sorry. Let's deconstruct the last three years.
I think we can focus on one thing. We can focus on the last couple of months or specifically
Tommy Jackett: [00:04:13] 2021. We could do a little retro. I mean, we're only, uh, six weeks into the year, seven weeks into the year. Um, but for us a lot's happened. So we finished up last year and we had, uh, Jess, George, Josh. Tommy and Mason working in big media company, which is the business, the ship let's, let's start to compare us to pain where the
Josh Janssen: [00:04:46] Titanic, you know, they've all gone down, had a real tough run.
I mean, um, how would you, if someone said to you, how did big media company start? Yeah. Would you say a
Tommy Jackett: [00:04:55] big media company started. Uh, because there was two blokes who were on their own solo mission that they were on their speed boats and, um, and they thought maybe they could bring their boats together and type them up is that creates the illusion of a big speed mode.
And therefore the speed boats are business. 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 crew mates. Off the bat, which is uni.
Josh Janssen: [00:05:31] And even if it's been three years, I'm not liking your mic technique. You're talking, you talk him through the Mike.
Like you're almost on top of it if you'd
Tommy Jackett: [00:05:38] just, okay, 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, uh, on the horizon, which is, you know, creating. Daily, uh, flexing our creative muscle, making a business, creating an environment where, um, people can come to and work and, and, and have fun together.
Um, Oh,
Josh Janssen: [00:06:07] can I go, can I, can I go back a little bit further? So I remember, um, you were doing a video in Queensland. Do you remember that? So you, you went to, uh, the headquarters of, uh, where Quantas started. That was the regional town. I remember, uh, we, uh, 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 under a hundred.
Tommy Jackett: [00:06:36] Yep. Yeah, you're right. 60 something.
Josh Janssen: [00:06:40] So it would have been middle of 2018. We started the podcast at the start of 2018 on January 16, 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 King. And so we decided to start. A podcast that we could do regularly because we saw YouTube as we're 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. So it would have been three or so months into the process. I remember having the conversation. I was just about to head off on a trip to Europe with Brie, which would planned sort of six or so months earlier. And, uh, At the start we were talking about, we're only going to maybe we'll do a hundred episodes, maybe after a hundred episodes, we'll finish up.
And our members 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 Macker's. And at the MCAS, uh, do you remember this at the car park? We did an episode. Um, that was the episode where you actually said that you believe that Sandra, Sally was a big smile.
Tommy Jackett: [00:08:12] Yeah. Which I think I got to stop for Helen
Josh Janssen: [00:08:15] capitalists anyway. And so, uh, but I remember driving all unconfirmed. Yes. And, but I remember driving. Uh, 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. So the, um, the back streets area of port Melbourne, just in Kilda where you used to live classic cheeky, you know?
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, uh, you know, a year and a half, two 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, uh, yeah, like it sounded like this big fucking thing I'm about to go.
Uh, white, uh, Europe. And so the idea of joining forces saying pretty hectic.
Tommy Jackett: [00:09:23] Yeah. I mean, my analogy of just asking the waters speed boats, it was slightly different because then it wasn't even about. Uh, yeah, we, so we ditched the speed boats. We were on to actually go into the water together and hold each other and we were trying to float.
And so, yeah, when you, when you look at, when you paint it like that, it's like, if which is the reality, it's just not even painting it. 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, um, and then I guess, Yeah. W what is it?
What's the
Josh Janssen: [00:09:58] in-between. 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, may I didn't really have any real, crazy responsibilities. If I had a month. 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 two 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 Jackett: [00:10:43] So it's a collective decision to. To jump into the water and swim and make something of it and sorry, and get to land. Or at least it is thinking about what's the what's, uh, 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. Where you are now feel as big as it's ever going to be, right? Yeah.
Josh Janssen: [00:11:15] Do you remember what day-to-day look like for you at that time?
Tommy Jackett: [00:11:19] Yeah. I mean, it was all of a similar nature, but just more lonely as in, from a creative perspective, not having consistency in really anything. That's what
Josh Janssen: [00:11:32] we were trying to find clients.
Tommy Jackett: [00:11:34] Yeah. Trying to find clients for a video production company. So you're doing sales in any way that you think.
Josh Janssen: [00:11:40] You know, you're having coffees with people you're meeting with marketing managers is yeah. Um, you know, it was learning.
Tommy Jackett: [00:11:47] It's not even knowing what I meant to be doing, but just trying to do something, which is one in
Josh Janssen: [00:11:53] the next, how much you want to be on the tools versus how should, should you hire someone?
What the deal is
Tommy Jackett: [00:11:58] because he 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, it's a 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 everything you've done, you like, would I want to do it again? You're like, fuck, no. Like, like it was all P it's all painful. All the stages are the aversion 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 programs
Josh Janssen: [00:12:45] in your brain.
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. Uh, 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, uh, you know, radio karate, you know, with hi emission, Andy, Ryan, like that sort of model had gamma over in the States. Yes, it's. It's looking at, okay. How do we, we want to create at 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 recognizing 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, uh, midway through my trip.
That was when we decided, um, maybe we could get Seth Goden on the podcast. And, uh, 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?
Yeah, Melbourne and LA LA new. And so we then met up. Interviewed Seth Goden. 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 bio's 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, it 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 to being big matey company's office. Yeah. Um, what do you remember at that time?
Tommy Jackett: [00:15:38] Yeah, I mean, you're just thinking about what 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.
Challenges 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,
Josh Janssen: [00:16:17] uh, four, and you're also trying to work on what matters.
And so for us, like we spent a bunch of time. Riding out things like the big meaty 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 14, there was, you got, uh, some sparklers with my birthday on it.
And I remember, I think you said, Oh, Mason. Help me put this together. And, uh, so Mason was there. So he, at the time, uh, when that was all happening, he sent you an email. Apparently he sent me an email that I never read, but he sent an email saying, Hey, making
Tommy Jackett: [00:17:11] sense. Now you are why you checked us away
Josh Janssen: [00:17:15] and sorry, he sent an email saying, Hey, happy to work for free.
Yeah. And do you like as a lonely guy looking for a, you know, I'm a predator, you just wanted people around, right. You had this office space and so you were doing,
Tommy Jackett: [00:17:29] sometimes you wonder why fucking people are emailing you and it's, and it's, and because I'd created enough noise in some. I'd yell in a direction that someone heard.
And so sometimes you don't think anyone hears you and what I'm talking about, the noises like videos online, social media, because at the time you like fucking don't really have much to offer. It's just me when I took it. When you talk about a company with an office, it's still w 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 Janssen: [00:18:12] And so it was, you know, on easy, straight, Uh, above a cafe connected to a, an art gallery and your, your best mate was across, across the whole, in his office, uh, conspiracy, Jimmy, and, uh, 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 cheap PC, you know, he's shitty
Tommy Jackett: [00:18:48] ACR
Josh Janssen: [00:18:48] or whatever it was. We tried with the trick. Yeah. And so, anyway, so that was, you know, when was that?
That must have been around August. Yeah.
Tommy Jackett: [00:18:55] Yeah. August, September. Yeah. It must've been September. Cause then I flew out to New York on the 27th or 8th of September 20, I
Josh Janssen: [00:19:04] sang. And so, uh, when, during that time, when we got back in sort of. Uh, 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 in Invitae, which was just enough to get us going, being able to pay, you know, pay the cost of what the rent was.
Tommy Jackett: [00:19:28] I new camera, we didn't even own a camera as a business. Then we're a
Josh Janssen: [00:19:32] video production company. And so we, and I 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? Um,
Tommy Jackett: [00:19:56] that was auto-generated
Josh Janssen: [00:19:58] we copied and paste them off, uh, off Google. Now I think like we had the intention. Of Duke going big or impact having
Tommy Jackett: [00:20:10] impact. Yeah. And what's the other option, like 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 me, 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 don't want, he's had slight pushback on, um, 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, before you've even got into them. And so where I do understand more so now is, um, what, 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, um, you're very on to 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, yeah. Reel that out, which we still believe
Josh Janssen: [00:21:51] in all of that. And I think that is if you were to, uh, Al mate, uh, Craig Harper had us on his podcast and he was a, and still is a massive supporter of ours. And he asked us about. Now values. I don't know if you remember it most sort of fumbling over that.
Like it was the early days, the values you should go listen to. It's pretty horrendous. So we could go the Valley. We didn't have the values there. He asked them, TJ is, I think one of them celebrate others as I'm trying to find my phone. But the point was that we, we found that, uh, as individuals creating, there's a huge benefit in having people around.
To elevate them as well.
Tommy Jackett: [00:22:36] Absolutely. And celebrating others was 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, um, and how we've.
Helped or at least tried.
Josh Janssen: [00:23:06] I like celebrate. Yeah. I think it's like helping it is celebrating. Right? Cause 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
Tommy Jackett: [00:23:20] or what their quirks are or what they're, you know, w how they act
Josh Janssen: [00:23:24] all that stuff.
But also even things around like a 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, uh, 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, uh, I could be, you know, I could FaceTime you re 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 a lot of work. And so, uh, we made a commitment though on, uh, The, uh, the follow on the first birthday, uh, January 16, 2019, where he said, you know what, we aren't going to start filming every single episode. Yeah.
Tommy Jackett: [00:24:27] I remember the day because it was like, we were, I think we probably had an argument about it.
Yeah. Well,
I
Josh Janssen: [00:24:34] think there was definitely so
Tommy Jackett: [00:24:35] because you realize how much work is going to happen and I'm going to fucking walk too. Sydney from Melbourne
Josh Janssen: [00:24:42] million steps
Tommy Jackett: [00:24:43] in a month, 1,000,006 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
Josh Janssen: [00:24:50] counting. 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 where we're looking, uh, healthy, uh, lighter and just, uh, you know, a more vibrant life younger. Um, but if you look on the back, what you can see on the, in the background is a massive piece of butcher's paper.
You have to 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, 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 five 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. You can't keep working for free. 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 show notes or getting it up, but, 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 Jackett: [00:26:02] Well, the artwork was banging together. It was just some text on a photo of us that we, that we took trying to remember,
Josh Janssen: [00:26:07] which is, Oh, is it? Yeah. The artwork. Yeah. It was literally a photo that we took of you and I and Fonda at
Tommy Jackett: [00:26:15] the light. And you're like, fuck, we need photos.
Josh Janssen: [00:26:18] And so we said, okay, we will pay a maze, 50 bucks, an episode contractor, or whatever can do whatever he wants during the rest of the time. And he just gets the video app 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 lot, like for a good period of time from if that was 20, uh, 2019, January, February, March, it was getting really hot.
And then this is when the office became a problem because. There was
Tommy Jackett: [00:26:54] no way I con well, it was no econ sound. It was shit, you know, shit. This sh it was almost a shared space out to 50 square meter 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, yeah, you just want to feel different. You want the next
Josh Janssen: [00:27:21] it's like moving into your girlfriend or boyfriends at 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 go in, yeah, you've done a great job with a wall and all that sort of thing, but I'm like, I wouldn't have picked up this, this, this, this, this, and this.
And I was whinging enough about it that, um, I would just send you random rentals, you know, said,
Tommy Jackett: [00:27:44] I tell you what, you, you, you tell yourself a story to serve your vision or your goals, or even, yeah. I mean, just thinking about stories when, when something negative happens, I guess it's to feel better about the situation.
But the story I told was we found a place and, um, it was, you know, it same 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. Yeah.
Josh Janssen: [00:28:12] And sorry, it was double the rent of what we were paying at the previous place.
Yeah. Um, 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 Jackett: [00:28:28] Any stretches that create pain, feel knots it's after it. Yeah. But I know what you mean. It's a stretch. That's it's Indy. It's enriching. It's in reaching distance, but it is stretching.
And so that's this place that we're we're in
Josh Janssen: [00:28:45] now and actually thinking about it. The biggest friction was that we would do the podcast at easy straight, 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. So I think, and we will, we will literally working in our podcast studio.
So it's like we have it, like there was no separation. I think that we were feeling that. And so this place that we're in at the moment, uh, the appeal was. Had 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.
Yeah. Um, and so once we did that, am I going into way too much detail? Is this okay? No, it's kinda,
Tommy Jackett: [00:29:33] it's good. It's good to get into. It 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 three of us plus this bill plus this building, which is basically a fourth person that you, yeah, so it
Josh Janssen: [00:29:48] was, I think it was, there was definitely a time.
So I think it was like, uh, uh, from, uh, we, we got this place in April. I think that's right. Sort of around Easter time. And then I think by sort of started the financial year around that time. That was when we're like mace, this 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 is like, that was, that was awesome about Macy's who would throw himself at anything, even though he didn't necessarily.
Uh, it didn't come natural to him, which is perfect. You've looking radio when everyone wants to get on it.
Tommy Jackett: [00:30:32] Yeah. The annoying ones like that. Yeah,
Josh Janssen: [00:30:34] exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And so 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 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. Being able to turn to
Tommy Jackett: [00:31:01] someone and say, what do you think, man? Yeah, yeah. Which just diffuses the energy.
Cause you know, they're not going to come out and say which mice doesn't is. Wow. Josh is fucking right. Yeah. You're an idiot Tommy. Yeah. And so, yeah, you're right. A diffuser.
Josh Janssen: [00:31:17] And so the idea was that I think what we identified is we were spinning 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're getting paid previously. Um, but the idea was that we needed this to be consistent. And so I think that it is 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 where like, you know what we need to give. The podcasting thing, a proper crack, right? So we've just hired a mace and we're like, we're struggling with getting some momentum going.
We've got someone who's doing the podcast. 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 story that we created, which was a fucking great story was the why that way ongoing. To get money through the podcast is we need some rara.
We need a raise. We need to have a reason to sell, celebrate. And, uh, I remember we had a, uh, from July luggage on the podcast and 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, uh, 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 a thousand dollars an episode.
The problem is that the way that podcasting works for the most part. Uh, 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 amount of return.
And so, uh, for, uh, for 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 1520. 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 right. It depends with CPM on YouTube based on the type of content you do. So for instance, if you talk about finance, 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 of finance YouTubers, they're making some of them in to the millions.
Tommy Jackett: [00:34:33] A year, but it usually lends itself to people that are getting serious, serious number. So any of the big podcasters? Yeah. They can instantly make a lot of money.
Josh Janssen: [00:34:45] And so the thing is that our podcasts, I can't remember what the stats were at the time for the 50,000 a month, I think. Uh, but the thing is that, so it's 50,000 a month.
It worked out to be about 1500, uh, per episode. And so if you did the maths. We could make a total of like $75 an episode, big money, big money, big, big, big sweater. Before we may, before we did all of that research, we thought, fuck Virgin, have flights to Los Angeles at the moment for under a thousand dollars return.
That's a pocket. We've got to do it. And so I called a meeting on a Sunday. Bray was out. You and Mason came around to my place. I got my personal credit card, you know, just so, so we didn't feel it within the business. And I paid the 2,900 and something dollars for the three of us to go under three K. Yes.
Beautiful. We can invent tickets to Los Angeles. All we needed to do was sell three episodes at a thousand dollars and we've paid for our flights, right?
Tommy Jackett: [00:35:54] That's the numbers don't
Josh Janssen: [00:35:56] lie. And so CPM doesn't lie. And so, uh, anyway, we, um, we were pretty confident though. Uh, we were going in November, start the thirst.
I think, uh, we arrived. Was it on Mason's birthday? November one,
Tommy Jackett: [00:36:17] I think it was no, no, no. The day before day before we flew out Mason's birthday. Got there the day before my son's birth. Yeah. Yeah. Two birthdays.
Josh Janssen: [00:36:25] 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, cause we were doing a weekend banter at this point. Uh, if we do that, and the other thing that we're forgetting in all that time, we also have three-day deal from Canada who came for four months. That's right. He lived at the office, but that's a
Tommy Jackett: [00:37:00] whole nother story.
Well, yeah, I mean, I, that we'd upgraded from someone saying, can I come and work for you? Can I start saying, can I come across the world to you and stay with you for months? Yeah. I mean, amazingly worked out. All right. We have a good friend in three-day deal. I love him. He's
Josh Janssen: [00:37:20] a great dude. Yep. And so, uh, 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. Right. So let's like all October, we can sort of tease it. One, one listener is going to go right after the month. After speaking with all of our contacts.
All of it out like great relationships with people like Nando's, you know, knocking on Katz door who have done video work for going guys 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?
And
Tommy Jackett: [00:38:05] so, I mean, that's the thing about confidence. It doesn't judge it doesn't read the room sometimes.
Josh Janssen: [00:38:14] Yeah. And so we did that. We, um, we went, yeah. But, um, the total amount from the sponsorships equaled to $0. Yeah. And
Tommy Jackett: [00:38:27] S which the story that then comes in at that point is, uh, Oh, it's all cool. This is going to be great.
I'm going to have that idea when sometimes you need to do it first before, you know,
Josh Janssen: [00:38:40] we need, this is a proof of concept. Yeah.
Tommy Jackett: [00:38:42] But, uh, 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 paper, the real estate.
I mean, they might real estate agents, but they haven't come and look at this place since we've had it. Yeah. It's still there. It's still here, but yeah, you have to have somewhat of a business, which, uh, what, what that, what I'm saying is that still we're trying to make that work or giving it a 2% effort.
Josh Janssen: [00:39:17] And so we, uh, we did a bunch of episodes. And part of the, uh, the way that we justified it was our mate, Matt, Dave, Ella Lee, uh, lived in Los Angeles and Matt, 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 trips paid for itself, I guess it's fine.
And so Matt did this, technically.
Tommy Jackett: [00:39:42] It hasn't because it hasn't been paid for Matt page and
Josh Janssen: [00:39:46] Matt didn't pass it, but we got, uh, like, uh, it
Tommy Jackett: [00:39:48] was, can you say it's been paid for if there was no financial, transactional, you know, 500 bucks who paid for it? Well, no one paid for it, but it paid for
Josh Janssen: [00:39:58] itself yet. And so we, um, we did a bunch of, uh, uh, episodes.
We, we, uh, uh, during Halloween, so we're there for Halloween. We went on, um, Hollywood Boulevard. Is that where it was?
Tommy Jackett: [00:40:15] they have a Halloween, uh, ride every year. Well, they did before
Josh Janssen: [00:40:19] COVID so we had an Airbnb. In West Hollywood was awesome. Uh, and, uh, we just went off and did a bunch of different episodes, uh, with, uh, different people from Los Angeles and awesome. Uh, it's living a
Tommy Jackett: [00:40:33] dream 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, uh, 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 have, haven't done things, everything for money. Yeah.
Josh Janssen: [00:41:04] And, um, and during the time, uh, Tali was there as well. That's how it was LA was in Los Angeles.
And so I think she'd been on the podcast once and we spoke to her and we said, we've got to, um, Gotta do a bunch of podcasts and we did one or two. Yeah. At the
Tommy Jackett: [00:41:20] camera. Yeah. What did I think we did two episodes with tally
Josh Janssen: [00:41:24] and, uh, at the time, like we, uh, went out and partied with her.
Yeah.
Tommy Jackett: [00:41:28] Mason got drunk for the first time.
I
Josh Janssen: [00:41:29] mean, the, the thing that we didn't even touch on is just before he went to Los Angeles, uh, I, 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, uh, we now have. Visas that are
Tommy Jackett: [00:41:50] welcome. We've got four years left on it now.
Three based on yeah. Losing last year.
Josh Janssen: [00:41:55] So we got media visas and all that sort of thing. So there was a lot of, of, uh, stress, cause we all had to go to St. Kilda road to, to the consulate to get, get interviewed at the, um, the desk, which that, that, which
Tommy Jackett: [00:42:07] turns out you can't get an immediate visa. Yeah,
Josh Janssen: [00:42:10] we did.
We literally write a letter from. To ourselves. It was very easy. And so anyway, um, yeah, hung out with Tali did a bunch of episodes during that time. We also, uh, you and I were talking about Telly's great talent. Like she's very, like, just very good at coming up with, uh, uh, yeah. How would you describe it?
She was just wouldn't hold back.
Tommy Jackett: [00:42:36] Your energy is infectious. When you're around her, you, you feel the presence and you definitely. Uh,
Josh Janssen: [00:42:43] interested. 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.
Not really, but what happened in October was we were telling like we were going so hard in, we aren't going in the direction of the podcast that we started saying to clients, Hey, we're not doing video. He'd go to these people or whatever. We're focusing on the podcast stuff. And then we had. No money come in, we get back.
And we're like, okay, we're in trouble.
Tommy Jackett: [00:43:17] Yeah. Well, it all has to be paid for as in lace people expenses and, um, and yeah, you kind of need some money to
Josh Janssen: [00:43:27] take care of it. 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 Wayne, you're a one person operation. You can get away with doing things like not paying yourself. You can
Tommy Jackett: [00:43:43] get away. What's the first ACAT. I could probably cut my coffee or I could probably cut that subscription. Cause I haven't used it, which saves, which earns you. Perfect.
Josh Janssen: [00:43:52] You can leave, you can live off credit cards for a lot as a purse by saying it is
Tommy Jackett: [00:43:56] the quickest way to make money as in cutting things.
And so, yeah, it's a bit different when you have. Three, you know, wages that come out every fortnight and at least 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.
Josh Janssen: [00:44:14] 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 with food. We were in our office. We're fucked at what are we gonna
Tommy Jackett: [00:44:22] do today? So the funny thing is it doesn't feel like. We'd fucked. It completely. Cause you just consider that when
Josh Janssen: [00:44:30] a problem solver. Yeah. So it wasn't with fact that we're going out of business. We fact that we're going to have to have hard conversations and that hard conversation with, with your mum and dad.
And we said, Can we borrow 10 grand or whatever it was 20th, 20 grand. Can we borrow 20 grand? This will see us through all that sort of pull a line of credit, you guys. 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.
Um, and so, uh, that's 2019. We are, uh, the focus. So that w the, 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, uh, where you need to be able to generate some income because people closed down. And so cashflow 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 Jackett: [00:45:39] I'll just say the worst quarter of our business was, uh, October, November, December, 2019,
Josh Janssen: [00:45:45] the worst, which helped us out, uh, when it came to.
Uh, what happened next? What happened
Tommy Jackett: [00:45:52] next? You, you, you go through that was, that was a horrible Christmas as in a horrible place in my head that I was at, I felt. Burnt out. I felt, uh, which it should be the time that you sort of re regenerating, you know, doing some fucking healing 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 peoples that are now a part of my every day. And, but it definitely wasn't a break. Cause I remember coming back in. January, 2020.
Josh Janssen: [00:46:32] Yeah. Uh, on the sixth of Jan was when we
Tommy Jackett: [00:46:35] came back, which we didn't take much time
Josh Janssen: [00:46:36] off at all, a couple of weeks.
And so the sixth of Jan, I think I, 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, 12 principles of execution. And so it was all about, uh, wildly important goals. So wigs, um, score boards, a 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. Uh, with the idea of, you know, what we need to get out, uh, business sorted. And one of the things at the time you were doing all avant our finance stuff. So you were doing zero, doing all the reconciling and all that sort of thing.
And the thing was that, uh, we like we need. We need better support than this. Our accountant was shit operator and we like, we need something. And so yeah, having no
Tommy Jackett: [00:47:36] support from a financial perspective when you're not financial financial guy or you're not for most business owners and accountants. Yeah.
And you need a great one. And so we, yeah, we didn't have any support then. Yeah.
Josh Janssen: [00:47:49] And so, uh, Jason Robinson from future advisory, we caught up with him and he basically, uh, helped us so much in regards to getting very clear on, uh, what you, what our budget was started. Um, having monthly catch ups. Yeah. What, what, what do you remember being the key when he started, what were some of the.
Is there anything that stood out? Ah,
Tommy Jackett: [00:48:13] I think it's just like a, uh, a couple of puppies that just want to be loved and told that everything's all right. Or could be all right. He's all right. Just can be all right. And you have this, and so Jason Robinson from future advisory. Uh, was that person
Josh Janssen: [00:48:29] for us, he was our unofficial CFO.
And also like, you know, for that first year really looked after us and gave it, you know, they TAVR as well. Um, 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 and we started having.
These really great wins and finally were like, okay, well, we're going to be able to, uh, you know, pay your parents back, uh, you know, in, 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, uh, and there was also conversations with mace where it's like, okay, what we've identified, having someone like future advisory, looking over things where like, we actually need to.
Uh, make sure everything's making, uh, some money or that moving the business forward. And so this isn't the fault of mace. 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, when not making money, we tried to do that during that sort of October, November thing, and 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 a, 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 subsidize there.
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. COVID
Tommy Jackett: [00:50:29] hit real
Josh Janssen: [00:50:30] hard. And so the thing is that, uh, what happened
Tommy Jackett: [00:50:33] in that time, also in the early stages of 2020 was the work and the, the, the positivity of art, we can make this work.
This is just what we haven't been focusing on. So if we start focusing on it, it will start working. But at that point, that's when we met Jess.
Josh Janssen: [00:50:54] Yeah. So she started, I think that the, 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, going to do it all?
And so for a few of those jobs, we started to outsource more, have contractors and, and you're very good at reaching out to all of these people and having relationships with different contractors. And that's where we found Jess. Uh, in that time, in the end of February, early March, that was when the COVID stuff started to happen.
And we were fairly early, too. 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, a year to be filmed, like that's how fucking crazy there's the laser.
And so, um, it was then, uh, that we started going into the remote. Mode. And when we, uh, 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, uh, let's get the, the stuff that we need to be able to do it really well remotely.
There is no guarantee of job keeper 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. They weren't speed boats.
Tommy Jackett: [00:52:31] Yeah. I mean, we spent nearly 10 grand on equipping ourselves with a remote setup for something that didn't make money.
And. That's the risk you take because then job keeper was announced, which in Australia, if you're not across it as if you, uh, employed people full time, which is the pain that we went through of having three staff members on full-time wages, the, the, the wean 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 job caper, which was a.
$1,500 per employee payment per fortnight. So it's like three grand a month that the business was injected with every month.
Josh Janssen: [00:53:18] But that was, if that was, if you had under 30% revenue, initially it was the first month. So the thing is that we had an Epic, I think it was February. I think there's, I don't know the specifics, but I think February, it was like the Epic month.
And then March, when everyone got gun shy 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 he took off some pressure. Cause we could say we can focus on the podcast. Nice. We can pay you job caper.
We're paying all of us job keeper and that's, I felt
Tommy Jackett: [00:53:56] good. They made a commitment to six. The government made a commitment to six months of job caper as a minimum. So you knew for six months. Yeah, but I think just if you were a recipient of job keeper 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. So you get money given to you, but you also have to for this cashflow, which is, uh, we had to front the first month as a business, and some people had to take out loans to front, something that they didn't know was going to yeah.
You
Josh Janssen: [00:54:34] have to pay everyone within the team before you got the money back and
Tommy Jackett: [00:54:37] yeah. Which means that there's movement out of your account. Yeah. 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 fuck them.
And
Josh Janssen: [00:54:49] this is, this was the whole point around smaller businesses that had heaps of employees. If you're efficient chip shop and you have to pay, like you would have to pay out that money to be able to get the money. Uh, this is where the government at the time was saying he had to take out, uh, go to your bank.
Speak to them. They'll give you these loans or this sort of thing,
Tommy Jackett: [00:55:07] which you got to pay that money back to. 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. And so I think we were lucky enough to have little bits and pieces that happened and yeah.
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 Janssen: [00:55:45] 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. Yeah. What the future looked like. And so we decided we would do two episodes every week, day. We'll do our weekend banter and we'll do them all live. And so we had our setup where I had it all at home with my fiber connection and just one of the mentioned the fiber connection out of it.
Um, and so we, we, um, yeah, we did 12 shows. Uh, wait, wait for all of may. And then I think, uh, was it my, 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 groks onto a zoom call and we've 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 six months with job caper 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 Jackett: [00:57:07] that may have once been had don't need to be had anymore because it's onto 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.
That isn't, that is kind of what you're doing in business
hours.
Josh Janssen: [00:57:23] And so then when, uh, when the first lockdown sort of ended. Uh, we were working with Jess. She was still, uh, she was on, uh, working at another company at the time doing PR and, um, we're like, we want to be doing more stuff with you and she was part-time with them.
And so same with Georgia boy. Yes, that's right at hump day replay. And so GB. Yeah. So GB, uh, we saw at the Friday night drinks. Oh, that's right.
Tommy Jackett: [00:57:51] The in-person
Josh Janssen: [00:57:52] Friday night. Was that in February or January?
Tommy Jackett: [00:57:55] Janell fab. Yeah, I think it was Jan because Glenn, who is a groan from Florida Aussie dude was in. And so, yeah, we had a Friday night drinks at a place at
Josh Janssen: [00:58:06] Moondog brewery.
And so GB was really. Uh, 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 as sales, we needed editors. We needed people who could work within the business that would generate.
Income. And so throughout all the, 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, uh, his other work was, uh, shut down and all of that sort of thing.
So it worked out really well. It had how
Tommy Jackett: [00:59:02] often it was, it was
Josh Janssen: [00:59:03] his entire difference. And so, yeah. And so, uh, when things started to. Uh, open up in around August. Uh, 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, uh, 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. Tali had just, um, like we'd, we'd caught up with her in LA, uh, the year before we, we knew that she'd finished her podcast with mama 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 mama Mia was behind another brand, which was social squad and it was interviewing. And we always thought that. Tele wasn't an interviewer. Tele is best when she's tolerating the floor and being herself. And so, uh, when we had conversations with tele, uh, obviously at the start, it's very hard with podcast to make this workout 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 two years time, if this has gotten really big and you want to take it somewhere, we'll just put together a phase.
So it was a token fee of like $800 an episode. You could just pay that what however many episodes and you basically, you get the podcasts, you get the IP, all that sort of thing. We didn't check it. Like we didn't the con contracts with this sort of thing is more of a token thing just to have something.
Uh, written down and when we had the meeting with tele, one of the things, um, uh, we were talking about is like, who could we get to produce? Like, who could we get on air? And it was sounding
Tommy Jackett: [01:01:18] board or another person in the room. 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? Yeah. And we needed that person.
Josh Janssen: [01:01:34] And so Jess was contracting with us at the time and she sat in on that and until he said, Oh, well, I just, I assumed that it would be Jess. Yeah. And then socially, like, I don't know if like Mason's the right fit.
Cause like, there was always funny banter with Mason and tally 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. Telly. Yeah. Um, I remember coming up with, when we were coming up with the ideas. Like we would, we came up with this, a white board where we would go through and, uh, ask all these questions of a few different creators that we did it with them.
One of them was Tali where we asked, you know, what your biggest challenge was basically sort of coached through a process. And we came up with the name and I remember she was saying, you and I feel, um, uh, she used the word unlovable. I'm like, what about the podcast unlovable? And she's like, I think it's a bit.
Dark
Tommy Jackett: [01:02:32] sad, sad, sad. Um, and so we land, everybody hates me, then mentioned that
Josh Janssen: [01:02:36] podcast. And so we landed, we landed on too much Tali and, um, uh, we thought at the time that would be able to do it in person. And we did
Tommy Jackett: [01:02:46] well. Yeah, because it was, this was out the first lockdown. And so the, between that and the really severe lockdown.
So episode one, And I w maybe two or just, just one that was done in studio
Josh Janssen: [01:02:59] have been a couple. And so we had set up when we'd gone from remote to bang back in, we created this sort of like COVID safe space where we sort of had our desks separated and tele 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, Uh, today into our offices in the studio, you will see a board that says welcome Tony lodge. Are you? That's
Tommy Jackett: [01:03:30] right. It's still, yeah, it's still. And I
Josh Janssen: [01:03:32] moved the board yesterday. Yeah. And that is because, uh, Tony was, um, like one of the last people we had in studio.
I think we actually did it during that COVID break, you know, after lockdown. And so, uh, I was really like wrapped with. Uh, Tony and I, 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 for a employer. Can I. Is it cool if I do something with these guys and 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 tele.
And, um, that was where we came up with one trick, Tony. And, um, uh, at that time that was when, um, uh, we said, okay, producer wise, What are we thinking? And, uh, made sense. Uh, Mason would, uh, be able to be what, what Tony wanted was someone that wasn't too crazy to 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. Mm, it
Tommy Jackett: [01:05:04] was just genuine. And he's, and he's honest, he's, he's who he is. You ask him to give you an answer about something. He will tell you, honestly, in an, in a naive way that is so endearing, like there's an endearing nature to someone who is just saying what they say or
Josh Janssen: [01:05:22] yeah.
What it's about. And so this is all around August, September, we go back into lockdown. I think it was in September. Yeah. Cause I had my 30th birthday in lockdown. Um, and uh, Uh, we started doing all of the podcasts remote, uh, at the time Jess, wasn't working with us full time, but we had a conversation where we said, okay, if were getting our job taper 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 work with some great brands where we were doing a podcast. Uh, advertising on tally'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 a Humpday replay and bringing in grants and doing all that stuff. It was awesome. Uh, and then it got to, uh, October. I think it locked down out of lockdown and, uh, we're trying to work out.
Okay. Like, let's get into this. I'm trying to think. I feel, I feel like a bit of a blank of what had happened October, November,
Tommy Jackett: [01:06:44] the energy that people had that are 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. Cause what else have you got?
And so the business. Our production business actually ramped up. Yeah. And so we did land a bunch of jobs that got us out of the lockdown. And so you, you, 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'd actually just created for the last six months and found a cadence with.
And so then we're all back in and it's just
Josh Janssen: [01:07:32] focusing on that focusing. 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, Uh, ads.
So we, we invested in our technology for our dynamic ad insertion and we, uh, we created a separate sort of pillar of the business called ad pod, where people could advertise with us ad pod.com.edu, um, to get.com no only dot comes out. You both have an Australian play. And so, uh, during that time, During October, November, we realized of like, okay, we're starting to get more production work.
This is going to happen. Like, this is, this is working. And so, uh, we need George, we need GB to be able to be doing editing. It was getting near the end of his agency contract. And so we offered him a full-time role it middle of December and said, Hey, can you do it? Can you start. Uh, mid Jan. And
Tommy Jackett: [01:08:59] so, so then at that point, you've, we've.
We now have five employees on full-time salaries.
Josh Janssen: [01:09:07] And so we're paying ourselves through job taper. We had because of our fucked month in October, November, December, like that quarter, um, the following year, we were fine until then. To also get into job. No, so that's right. So no, because we had month, we could, October, November, December was so low for 2019 that we knew that we would be ramping up.
So we had job keeper. We knew until the end of September, but October, November, December was going to be our last time on job caper before we were full full-blown paying salaries ourselves in January. And so, uh, during, uh, all of that time, we're trying to work out, can we get this podcast stuff going? And we had goals around how much each podcast needed to make in revenue.
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 two to a pre roll to mid roll, all of this sort of thing. And what we'll finding was the podcast advertising side of things, uh, was a lot harder or it was taking time.
Versus with our video staff, 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, Well, 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 ass off. Cause
Tommy Jackett: [01:11:00] you know, we've tended to assholes pretty tight over the years and you know, that, that what that can create.
Josh Janssen: [01:11:06] And so we, um, Uh, there was a bunch of, so, uh, Mason, uh, took a break to go to WWI.
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 were confident that this is going to be 20, 21 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 about 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
Tommy Jackett: [01:11:50] work? What is this? Because what you, what you're coming out of is. Uh, the podcast stuff that we'd created, which was thrusted and sort of brought forward based on COVID plus the production and company that we'd actually made ramp up and, you know, allowed us to even take some time off over December, coming from 20 nineteens, December, January, like break, which was hell to.
December 20, 20 to 2021, which actually was able to give us time to disconnect, or at least just take three weeks off after a horrible year. And so, yeah, that, that start to 2021 is, uh, 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 Janssen: [01:12:49] 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, uh, general manager who can do so much in the way of sales that can do so much in regards to like 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 six months in regards to what we could do from a revenue perspective, um, that was a difficult. Uh, 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 job came a 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 may stars? 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 businesses 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 going. The pot, like, just love 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, uh, 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 hide mace and this was true because, you know, he would reflect this.
He was always a great around our struggles was. Uh, he didn't need a great deal of money. He didn't need it. So if, if, if the company shit, the bed or whatever, it wasn't the end of the world, it would be really annoying. But, but, but having George come in, having just 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 them, what we spoke about with mace, uh, at the start of 2020, what about if we got Mason to that sort of, uh, mentee role with Jess and Jessica mentor, em, and all that sort of thing.
We w 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 realized we just don't have, we just see we'll 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 w when I say we made Mason's role redundant, I think you don't make a person redundant. 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 WWI and said, Hey mate, this is, you know, this is what the deal is.
Um, and so, you know, not an easy thing to do. Hmm.
Tommy Jackett: [01:16:45] No. Why? I think, um, I think what we've done is, uh, we've done a great job of, um, 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
Josh Janssen: [01:17:23] hard. And I think the other thing too is we, we went for a clear.
Response a clear way forward. So I think that it's easy in these difficult times to end up landing in ambiguity, landing in uncertainty, because you like, Oh, we want to keep you around. So let's get your part time or that now want
Tommy Jackett: [01:17:48] 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.
Yeah. And so that's where, yeah. I think the, yeah, the decision was even made more hard by how I felt about him and, and what he'd brought in done for us and the people and the energy that he brings. And so he was fucking gutted.
Josh Janssen: [01:18:17] And so. That was a very hard conversation. And that was one that, and, and ha 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 can communicate it? And so part of that was Mike, do you want to come on for a fat Fridays celebration? What do you want? And the thing is because we had sort of laid a lot of the podcast stuff, the role, there wasn't necessarily an attachment that had personally to all of those things.
And so it wasn't like he was going to straight away, go onto another. Podcast roll 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 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, Tiny 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. Telly has Jess has, you know, you were executive producer. We were doing a lot, like we were investing a lot of time 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 ma I know she would have liked to make it work. She would have liked to continue to do the podcast, but she also. With a 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 tally, 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, telly, here's the podcast, here's all the assets, everything that you need. Um, When 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 de, who does podcasts and all that sort of thing. There's fucking every network under the sun that would, would have you just here it is. We, 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 it with everyone, you know, we keep our relationship
Tommy Jackett: [01:21:41] think anything that we've done.
We've tried to, um, think about what. 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 fatale and us not doing too much telly anymore. It's the best thing for Talley is her to continue doing the thing that she loves and let's not let money get in the way have it.
That's the easiest, that's the easiest, but best outcome for her. Yeah. 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, 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 Janssen: [01:22:48] 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, 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 in, this is just a story 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 not, 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.
Yeah.
Tommy Jackett: [01:24:01] Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think that's, um, I think that's a wrap about what the changes in. So just to recap,
Josh Janssen: [01:24:14] so it started in 2018, sorry. No, we
Tommy Jackett: [01:24:17] haven't mentioned this Mason stuff on the shot. Yeah. We've written, uh, Josh wrote, uh, a great, um, explanation of, you know, cause people were saying where's Mason, Mason was a integral part of the show for, for hundreds and hundreds of episodes.
Um, and then we, I, I feel that there can be some word salad happen, uh, when we haven't thought about it. And so it's been nice to write something, put it out on Instagram, actually think about what Mason wanted. He wanted us to tell it how it is. Yeah. But I mean, other than us saying, do you want it to be in any way?
Do you want us to say that you are going out on your own to do your own thing and people and send people your way, which I'm not in, we're not in the business of, um, saying things how they aren't. Yeah, but it's also, how do people want. The situation to
Josh Janssen: [01:25:10] play out. Yep. 20, 21, 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, um, leads and, you know, the website, people finding, finding us. And there was, it's always hard to just 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, uh, 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. Uh, 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 six, 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, to, uh, 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 into a marathon before I've done the same single step
Tommy Jackett: [01:26:56] by the
Josh Janssen: [01:26:57] shins effect.
And so I think that it's like, even though this is all, uh, sad, and it's also, you know, impacted a bunch of people, there is a huge positivity or sorry, 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 six 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.
Tommy Jackett: [01:27:47] Right. Spot
on.
Josh Janssen: [01:27:49] Hi, the daily show.com is the email. Yeah. Send us an email if you've got any thoughts, any questions? Uh, yeah. Enjoy the rest of your day. We say to my guys have a good one.
Say guys.