0:00

You almost have to tell and explain

0:02

to people that are not understanding

0:04

your 200 hours , 500

0:07

hours , a thousand hours into the project , what

0:09

the vision , what the goal is

0:11

, because not everybody understands

0:14

what Zappier is . They

0:16

just don't .

0:18

Why do I need it ? Why do I ?

0:19

need it , you can save time . I

0:21

don't need it . Yeah , it's

0:23

hard to explain , but you have to come up with

0:25

those bigger size not

0:29

goals , but it's like a vision of what you want

0:32

to build out .

0:33

Hello and welcome to Developers

0:35

Journey , the podcast bringing you the making

0:38

of stories of successful software

0:40

developers to help you on your

0:42

upcoming journey . I'm your host , tim

0:44

Borghigno . On this episode , I

0:46

receive Dave van Beekum . Dave

0:49

is the co-founder and creator of Tweeva

0:51

, the world's first social TV network

0:54

for small businesses and influencers

0:56

. A digital marketing guru , startup

0:58

and TDS and tech expert , dave

1:00

is a man of many talents . He

1:02

lives in Florida with his wife and three girls

1:05

and enjoys the beautiful outdoors . Well

1:07

, do you say Florida ? Yeah , when

1:10

he's not bound to one of his many computers

1:13

. Hearing the geek in there already

1:15

. Dave , welcome to Dave Journey , hey

1:17

thanks , Tim .

1:18

Yeah , oh man , I am a geek from

1:21

a long time ago and Florida

1:23

is beautiful , but it's hot during the

1:25

summer . It is really hot . It's hot and

1:27

sweaty . You got to put a t-shirt on . You

1:30

can't wear one of those cool silk the Hawaiian

1:33

shirts . It's just hot and sweaty , that's

1:35

what I've heard .

1:37

Been there only once , but it wasn't a winter .

1:38

deep in the winter , oh it's nice in the winter , yeah

1:41

but , I'm originally from New Jersey , so you know it's

1:43

that cold weather , the snow in the winter

1:45

, the shoveling . You know you

1:47

get down here and people say it's hot and heavy

1:49

but you don't have to shovel it . That's like

1:52

. You know the snowbirds language .

1:55

We'll see if it stays this way . We'll see

1:58

yeah we'll see . Yeah

2:00

, but before we come to your story

2:02

, I want to thank the terrific listeners

2:04

who support the show . Every month you

2:07

are keeping the Dave Journey lights

2:09

up . If you would like to

2:11

join this fine crew and help

2:13

me spend more time on finding phenomenal

2:16

guests than editing audio tracks

2:18

, please go to our website

2:20

, devjourneyinfo , and

2:22

click on the support me on Patreon button

2:24

. Even the smallest

2:26

contributions are giant steps

2:28

toward a sustainable Dave

2:31

Journey journey . Thank you , and

2:34

now back to today's guest . As

2:36

you know , the show exists to help the listeners understand

2:38

what your story look like and imagine how to shape

2:40

their own future . So , as is usual

2:42

on the show , let's go back to your beginnings in New Jersey , new

2:45

Jersey or somewhere else , dave

2:47

? Where would you place the start of your journey ?

2:49

Oh , that's definitely back in the days of New

2:51

Jersey . That's almost 18

2:53

, 19 years ago now . So

2:56

if I go back way , way , way back , my

2:58

dad is an electrical contractor and

3:01

he loved to just fiddle

3:03

with anything . So he would , let's

3:06

say , working at a clean room in New Jersey

3:08

, he would say , oh , are you throwing out that switch over

3:10

there ? What about that air pump over there ? And he

3:12

would take home you know , a grommeted

3:14

switch for a clean room and then there'd

3:17

be an air pump over here in a three phase

3:19

four 80 volt motor over there

3:21

on the counter . And so this

3:23

, this progressed for quite a while

3:25

and he had amassed three

3:28

bays in the garage just full

3:30

of different electronic equipment . Well

3:33

, not electronic in the form of what we would say today , electronic

3:35

, but electrical contracting

3:37

things . So when me

3:40

and my brother were , you

3:42

know , bored , we would go play

3:44

in the garage and there was just technology

3:47

. There was an air horn off of

3:49

a boat and my brother

3:51

had to connect this to a 12 volt battery . One time

3:53

, you know , scared to be Jesus out of us , but

3:57

just the most random thing , like I

3:59

remember when I was a kid taking a part of microwave

4:02

. And then we did that . Oh

4:04

, my brother , don't touch those capacitors . Okay

4:07

, you know , we'd get a rubber glove out or something

4:09

so we could disassemble it and then we take it

4:11

to the , to the desk and we would use

4:13

a soldering iron to pull off certain

4:16

capacitors and chips . We didn't know exactly what

4:18

to do with it . But you

4:20

know , that was kind of my really really

4:22

early years , and

4:24

I think it might have been six or seven , when

4:26

my uncle worked at Dunn and

4:28

Bradstreet in New Jersey and

4:31

he was the computer technician . So

4:33

he would have to upgrade

4:35

a hundred or 200 computers . And

4:38

this is back when you would upgrade a

4:40

hundred or 200 to 86s

4:43

, 33 megahertz computers . And

4:45

so he would say hey , you know

4:47

, if anybody wants one in the family , and I would

4:50

, you know what's that , you know ? Oh yeah

4:52

, I'll take one . My dad got me one and

4:55

it was just an old one , two , 86 , 33 megahertz

4:57

monochrome screen . But that really

5:00

started the journey into the tech field

5:02

of computers , versus

5:05

the , the , the wires and the technicals and electrical

5:07

contract in which my brother

5:09

really loves , my dad really loved . But something

5:12

about sitting in the chair and

5:14

working on a computer and seeing those

5:17

things come up on the screen , I think

5:19

. A few months later he gave me a dot matrix printer

5:21

and I started playing with that with a parallel port , and

5:24

that's really got me hooked . So

5:27

between the

5:29

computer that was in my room and

5:32

then my dad's audio video

5:34

connectors , mixing board , we

5:37

had a 16 channel Mac Mac keyboard and

5:40

I put that underneath an L

5:42

shaped desk , underneath my hanging

5:44

bed , which my dad hung off the ceiling so we didn't have

5:47

any posts . So

5:49

I had a video , a mixer

5:52

, two VCRs , a reel to

5:54

reel , you know , total geek out

5:56

. And

5:58

so my computer on one side

6:00

, I had this studio on the other , and I must

6:02

have been 10 at that point . And so we went

6:04

on vacation and I saw this little toy

6:06

thing saying transceiver

6:09

receiver , fm transceiver

6:11

receiver , you know , broadcast to your sister's

6:13

, brother's room . I was like , oh

6:16

, if I could take a headphone

6:18

jack into a 1.5 millimeter

6:20

, I could broadcast what I have to

6:22

the other people in the house . And

6:24

so I did so . Then I had a little mini radio station

6:27

and check out , play my music , and you

6:29

know , and it was crazy , but I

6:31

had such a weird upbringing of technology

6:34

that it's just this broad view of many

6:36

different things and you

6:39

know it's weird . You

6:41

have those experiences but until you really

6:43

build a project

6:46

that you use them in , you kind of forget

6:48

what you did because you don't need

6:50

that memory . But

6:52

yeah , so that's a little overview

6:54

of the past history and

6:57

how I got here , how it started , and this is awesome

6:59

.

7:01

I love what I'm hearing in terms

7:03

of not being afraid of

7:05

the technology , not being afraid

7:07

of tinkering putting it out , maybe not putting it out , maybe

7:09

not putting back together , putting

7:13

your hands in there , with gloves or without , and

7:16

also on the computer , really doing stuff

7:18

with it and going deep in there and trying

7:20

to make something and not being afraid to break

7:22

it . This is absolutely

7:25

.

7:25

Yeah , once I , you know , my dad

7:27

figured out that I like computers . He had an old 8088

7:30

that was , you know , his kind of office

7:32

computer and we'd play a couple of games

7:34

on that . But once I got mine , he

7:37

I think he might have said , okay , now we

7:39

can go to the computer shows . And so

7:41

way back then , you know , in New Jersey

7:43

I don't think it was on the edge of New York , but KGP

7:46

computer shows , I think I believe it was called

7:48

and he would love , every once

7:50

a month or something , we would go there and

7:52

I used to work with him , you know , on the side , and

7:55

when we'd go to the show I'd say , hey

7:57

, can I buy this CG , remember

8:00

CGA graphics card ? It was like

8:02

four colors , you know , or 16

8:04

or something . Dad , can I get this ? $45

8:07

was a lot back then . Yeah

8:10

, you can work it off with me at $2

8:13

an hour . Yeah , okay , yes

8:15

, yes . And I got to play my

8:17

little commander keen in four

8:19

colors instead of , you know , black and white . And

8:22

so , you know it was then going to

8:24

find the card and , oh , I don't have a PCI

8:26

slot or I don't have an ISA slot . You know

8:29

, it was , like you said a lot of

8:31

learning get the cables out

8:33

, can I get an upgraded new hard drive

8:35

deleting things

8:37

and then figuring out . That was the system . You

8:39

know , it's like where I started way

8:42

, way , way back then . But I always had that passion

8:44

. I just I don't know why , but I loved

8:46

it . It was not , it was my

8:48

sports , it was my comic

8:51

magazines , it was all computers

8:53

and technology , maybe because it was

8:55

available , Maybe

8:57

Maybe because it was just sitting

8:59

there , I don't know

9:01

, but it just progressed from there

9:03

.

9:05

One thing I'm not sure I got

9:07

right . Did

9:10

you enjoy the technology for the technology

9:12

, or did you have something

9:14

in mind to be doing with

9:16

it always ? And we're searching for that

9:19

through technology .

9:21

I don't know if it opened up . I remember thinking

9:24

I loved music . My

9:26

mom was a choir director , my

9:28

dad did audio video for church , so

9:30

I was always around audio and sound mixing

9:32

. So

9:34

maybe the

9:37

maybe I loved the music

9:39

, so I would then get the Mackey board

9:41

and connect all the connectors so I could adjust the

9:43

bass . I don't remember that

9:45

young if I had a reason , but the

9:47

technology almost gave me opportunity

9:50

. I think that's more the

9:52

way that it went is once I had it

9:54

in there and I could dream about it and think about

9:56

it . Oh , I could create a broadcasting studio

9:58

. I wonder if dad has a camera downstairs . And

10:01

he did . And then , because the mixer

10:03

had chroma key . So hey , what's chroma

10:06

key ? Oh , that's for green screen background , you know , like they have

10:08

in the news .

10:09

Okay , oh , all right .

10:11

Well , how does that work ? You know , tried it on a bookshelf

10:13

, didn't work . So , hey , mom , do you

10:15

have a green piece of material downstairs ? Yeah , I think

10:18

I got something and but it led to opportunities

10:20

to hey , sis , can you sit in front

10:22

of that ? And you remember those Omegles

10:24

you could connect two

10:26

blocks , they call them now and it's like this kid erector

10:29

set . They're huge , though , about a foot long . You

10:31

should build things out of them . Well , my parents at

10:33

a young age bought these two

10:36

huge , massive sets and so we

10:38

built out a stage for like

10:40

a desk , like a broadcasting

10:42

desk . So I don't know , like I'm

10:44

thinking , maybe the technology gave me those

10:46

ideas which presented them as the

10:48

opportunities to build or do something . I

10:50

didn't like start off saying , okay

10:53

, I have all this stuff , what would I want to

10:55

do ? It was more fun to just play

10:57

and connect and build .

11:01

And that leads into my next

11:03

question , which is kind of always the same

11:05

Was it obvious to

11:08

you that you would end up doing something

11:10

like this afterwards ?

11:13

Well , everybody would say you

11:15

know , you got to go to college , you got to do this , you

11:17

got to do that . I

11:19

think they really told

11:22

so many different ways that I could go . It could

11:24

be audio engineering , it could be video engineering

11:26

, it could be computers . At a

11:28

very young age I networked my house before

11:30

the internet was really out . I figured

11:33

out I think it was like Microsoft Enterprise

11:35

, outlooker , outlook , what

11:37

do they call it ? Exchange , right . And

11:40

so I networked the house with CAT3

11:42

or CAT1 cable . So , mom

11:46

, I'll send you an email . She's like what's that for ? Just walk

11:48

down and tell me . I was like I don't know

11:50

. But it's . This is this program in Windows

11:52

311 , and we can send each other messages

11:55

. What's

11:57

an IP address ? Why do we need that ? So

11:59

I had so many different , I just didn't

12:01

know which one I really enjoyed , you know

12:04

. So I didn't know at the time , but I knew

12:06

I wanted to do something like this because it didn't feel like work

12:08

. It felt like

12:10

I get to play with this and

12:12

build it and then listen to it and

12:15

change it , make sure it sounds good

12:17

. Once it sounded good , everyone's like it

12:19

doesn't sound any different . Yes , it does . This

12:21

other one doesn't have enough trouble

12:23

in it , you know .

12:24

So we shouldn't get into discussion if you

12:26

hear more on a wave file

12:28

than on MP3 .

12:30

Oh yeah exactly . Napster's

12:33

great , but it sounds like crap okay .

12:35

No it doesn't .

12:35

It's the song yes it

12:39

does .

12:39

So how did you choose on what to do next

12:41

in this broad spectrum

12:44

of opportunities ?

12:46

It really came out of what opportunities arose

12:48

, out of the connections that were built

12:50

by me or either

12:52

my dad involved

12:55

in those situations . So I

12:57

kind of chose the routes that were available

12:59

. So if somebody , he would say , oh , you know , we

13:01

did some networking here , then we networked the

13:03

church , and then somebody would say , hey , can you

13:05

network my business ? And

13:07

so then I would be brought out and , oh my goodness

13:09

, now I got to talk to people I

13:12

don't know , can you tell them how much you know ? And

13:14

so he kind of did a little bit of that in

13:16

there too . But the opportunities at

13:18

a young age started that way . It's

13:21

not until really

13:23

, I guess , I moved to Florida

13:25

when I just said

13:27

, okay , I'm going to incorporate what

13:30

I do into a legal business and

13:32

then progressively go out

13:34

and look for different customers that are

13:36

in that specific industry , and

13:39

so there's a few years in there . But that's kind of pushed

13:42

my way into . I like to work on the computer

13:44

. Websites are great because

13:47

I only have to interact a few times with the customer

13:49

, but I get to use the design , the

13:51

audio , the video and

13:55

build that into a projection of

13:57

what the business is , their image

13:59

on the web , and so nobody

14:01

was telling me this was right or wrong . I

14:03

get to look out onto the web and figure out what it is

14:05

and then do it a little bit better , and

14:08

so it took a little time to get to that point . But that

14:10

was about 18 when I

14:12

started . You know , the

14:14

legal business piece didn't work off of

14:16

underneath my dad and then built

14:19

it out .

14:20

So , until you were 18 , really navigating

14:22

whatever opportunity there was , grabbing

14:24

the opportunities to learn even more and do

14:26

something in this regard , but not necessarily pushing

14:29

on your own in the direction

14:31

of another , just grabbing what there is .

14:32

Yeah , I kind of grabbed what there is . I

14:34

wasn't really into the marketing and advertising piece of it . I

14:37

threw a couple web design stickers on my car Weirdest

14:41

thing like from the littlest advertisement

14:43

. I remember one person hey , can you meet

14:46

? I see I'm driving behind you

14:48

right now . Okay , yeah , you

14:50

need a website . Yeah , yeah , we do . Can

14:52

you meet me at my private hangar at the

14:54

executive airport in Orlando ? I'm

14:57

sorry .

14:57

What .

15:00

Private hangar . Why would you

15:02

call somebody with a sticker

15:04

on their back window ? You know like the

15:06

weirdest things happen

15:09

from a little bit of advertising and

15:12

you learn that over time

15:14

. But especially in our geek world

15:16

, I think in the software side , we always

15:18

have this idea of , hey

15:20

, if we build a really great product , if we build

15:22

something that's better than anyone else , everybody's going to love

15:25

it and I don't have to go , yeah

15:27

, and they will come and I don't have to talk about it , I don't have to this , they'll

15:30

just realize what it is . They haven't had 150

15:33

hours of thought into it . You know , we just think they're going to

15:35

get it and it's a mistake . And

15:38

I think a lot of devs have . Oh yeah , but you

15:40

got to do some evidence

15:42

. So

15:44

after that piece on the back window

15:46

, I just wrapped the whole entire car

15:48

in my company colors blue and

15:50

orange . It was

15:52

bright . It tracked a lot of bees . I'll say that

15:54

they thought it was like a big flower . My

15:57

wife's like so I'm going to go . My

16:00

wife's like so I'm going to waste . She's like honey

16:02

, your car , all these stripes and the

16:04

break , they just . There's bees all over

16:06

the car . But it worked really well

16:08

. It worked well , but I learned a little bit in there . It's like

16:10

you got to do . You can find your correct customer

16:12

, you can find new people and

16:15

do what you love at the same time .

16:19

Did you learn this all on

16:22

the fly ? While doing it , Did

16:24

you pose at some point and say hey

16:26

, I need to go grab the

16:28

skills . It's going to take three , four months and do that

16:30

and then come back or go through a formal

16:32

training . How did you approach this learning

16:35

?

16:36

I just kind of said , ok , let's

16:38

, let's try this . On the back of the car and I

16:41

was doing some SEO at the time , so I was getting

16:43

a little business from the web , from Google

16:46

, and that worked . But I just figured she's

16:48

driving the kids around all day , that

16:50

could be like a billboard , and

16:57

it is , and people would call me , I'm driving behind you . I'm

16:59

like , yeah , and I'd be sitting in the office just going like

17:01

, yeah , yeah , I'm out there somewhere

17:03

. I'm in Orlando now , because I didn't know where she was

17:05

. But no , I didn't

17:07

really sit down and plan it , I just said , ok , let's

17:09

try this , let's , let's build that , let's

17:11

do this , let's design

17:14

my car . And I would sit down in Photoshop and say this is

17:16

the way I wanted to look . I wanted to look

17:18

better than the other truck that

17:20

I saw for like a food truck go by , and

17:23

so I don't know if it was better or not

17:25

, but to me , I've always had that

17:27

. I can see the design , I can see

17:29

what looks good and what doesn't look . I could hear

17:32

things to , you know , in the audio . So

17:34

so I just use it to my advantage and

17:36

it worked until the Florida Sun killed

17:39

that , that rap .

17:42

Also , it was just burning

17:45

the paint , so it was it would just peel .

17:47

you know it was like eventually it was just bubbling up

17:49

. You know , this is years ago , before I had the high

17:51

quality stuff . But I

17:53

always thought , like , can I pay people to do this ? And

17:56

so I asked a friend hey , let's build a

17:58

little startup where we can find cars

18:00

to . You know , pay

18:02

them a couple hundred bucks a month and then they will be all driving

18:04

around . You imagine what kind of a company you'd have five

18:07

cars were driving around . People would think you're busy all

18:09

the time . Right , and again , that

18:11

that . But . But you hear it in in

18:13

that idea is I

18:15

don't really have to go find it , just

18:18

try this and it will work . And it's

18:20

almost like the wrong way to

18:22

do it . Like you're saying , to plan

18:24

it out is a lot better to sit

18:27

there and say , hey , this is the plan , moving

18:29

forward , let's get this many cars

18:31

going . In the first month you do one and then

18:33

by the fourth month you have to . It

18:35

never got to that point because it was just

18:38

off the cuff Try this , try that .

18:41

Which is also valuable in itself . It

18:43

could be experiment based and just

18:45

trying to see the return on this month . Just sometimes

18:48

, the return on this month is very hard to measure . Yeah

18:50

, yeah , it definitely is . Yeah , at

18:53

which point did you did you start focusing

18:55

on your activities and

18:57

how did you decide on which activity to focus

18:59

on ?

19:01

So once I became

19:03

busy enough , where it

19:05

was so much work to do and

19:07

the car was working so well and I had some SEO

19:10

going locally , I

19:12

think it was at like 12 or 15

19:15

websites or there were

19:17

pretty big jobs and I finished eight

19:19

of them in a month and I go , I

19:21

just I mean I work a lot I

19:24

went and got a boat so I could hit things with hammers

19:26

, because it was an old , used boat

19:28

. And I'm like I just I'm sitting in front of the computer all the

19:30

time and my wife's like what did

19:33

you just buy on Craigslist ? I was like I

19:35

just got to hit stuff with hammers , I'm so frustrated

19:37

and so be cutting out a piece of

19:39

rotten wood . And she's like , what are you doing in there ? I'm like

19:41

I don't care , it's not programming , you know

19:44

it's not doing else . And I realized at that

19:46

point I go , this

19:48

is not working . I have to be

19:50

more organized . I have to have a project management

19:53

tool . I can't just drop things in

19:55

folders and you

19:57

know right out a , you

20:00

know right out the to-do list or what I have to do on

20:02

the invoice . You have to become very

20:04

, very organized with what you do . And so

20:06

that kind of made this turning point of the

20:09

boat was a frustration

20:11

of doing

20:13

things wrong and we have to

20:15

change into something that's very organized

20:18

set meetings , set schedules

20:20

of sitting down and talking to clients . Ok , this is what

20:22

we're going to work on for the next 30 days , and

20:25

no , I can't get this done in two weeks

20:27

. We have to understand these timelines

20:29

, and so I learned a lot at

20:32

that point and

20:34

started becoming organized with

20:36

an internal database where I could put tasks

20:39

in and build out the project

20:41

before it was built .

20:44

But it was still only with

20:47

the air quotes , only web development

20:49

. So websites building , or

20:51

were you doing something else still

20:54

?

20:54

It was still a mix of databases

20:56

, web networking . For

20:59

the guy that called me to his private

21:01

airport place , it

21:07

was I have 20 exotic cars , can

21:09

we take them out ? And I want to do

21:11

a video shoot . And so I was like , yeah

21:13

, I'll go get a camera . Ok , yeah

21:15

, I could do that because I could do video editing

21:17

. So we

21:19

, oh , and I have a bus , I have a pre-vose bus

21:22

, we'll take in a mansion over here . Can we do the mansion

21:24

too ? And so we built out

21:26

a DVD to hand out

21:28

to other investors and when people visit

21:30

before the days of Airbnb

21:32

and Turro , to come down

21:34

to Orlando and rent this stuff , enjoy

21:37

. He had four

21:39

aircraft , fractional ownership

21:41

and 200 properties . So

21:45

it was what are we going to work on ? How

21:47

can we build this and then maintain the website and

21:49

can we put this in a database ? So it was a lot

21:51

of mix , but it

21:54

was probably a lot of . I

21:57

wouldn't say it was the best time of my life , but it was a lot of fun

21:59

to jump and be part

22:01

of those different pieces . The problem

22:03

is it's not focused on that

22:05

one thing , so I could see myself

22:08

losing a little bit in video

22:11

development , because unless you're constantly

22:13

in video development , working in Adobe Premiere

22:15

or Final Cut , you kind of lose

22:17

the edge . And the same on

22:19

the Photoshop side . You kind of had to relearn it on the

22:21

week that you were working on it , so

22:24

I was getting my head going . Ok , this

22:26

works so well , but

22:28

for only so long , and

22:31

eventually there's going to be people that

22:33

grow up that will be professionals in all

22:35

those specific areas . I

22:37

think I don't know if that was in days of like Joomla

22:39

and Mambo , where they had the CMSs

22:43

, the relational database

22:45

CMSs , and so that was working

22:47

. But every time they do an upgrade , something would change . I'd

22:49

have to go in and figure out OK , what changed

22:51

over here , what changed over there

22:53

? That was before the days of WordPress

22:55

was so popular . But yeah , I

22:57

had to learn at some point to

23:00

let go of the reins a little bit and find people

23:02

to do those things .

23:04

So you still kept this multiverse

23:07

of activities , just not did them

23:09

on your own . So your company was still unfocused

23:12

or focused on all those things I'm not

23:14

sure which terminology you would use , but

23:17

you yourself were doing just the subset over there .

23:19

Yeah , I was doing little pieces of that , but I was

23:21

tending to say , ok , I

23:23

did that little video thing here , I did this , I

23:25

did that . But that's really not

23:27

as much fun as sitting here and

23:29

focusing on coding and

23:31

developing , because if you code and

23:33

develop something , you can scale it . I

23:36

can't scale taking a picture

23:38

of an aircraft or getting inside of a

23:40

private jet with a 20

23:42

millimeter wide angle lens and doing

23:44

a back out shot Like what are you going to do with that

23:46

after it's done ? So it

23:49

was fun , it's unique , but it's

23:51

over the next day . It's like , ok , it's gone . So

23:55

was I able to take my time and

23:57

scale it ? No , ok

24:00

. Then what are you after ? Fun or scale

24:03

? And I said , ok , I have to think scale

24:05

the family , the what ? Ok , how

24:07

do we get rich ? How do you build ? How do you

24:09

take a break from the craziness

24:12

is build something at scale . So that

24:14

started to work in my mind as find

24:17

other smart people , find

24:19

other people to partner with .

24:22

And was that fun as well for you ? For

24:24

what ? To find other people , to find

24:26

them and then have them do something else for

24:28

you no , because it's hard to find

24:30

good people .

24:32

It's really hard to find good people .

24:35

It doesn't need to . Yeah , how did you manage

24:37

that scaling then ?

24:39

I didn't scale as far as I could have . So

24:41

I would scale the few people here or there and

24:46

then the economy would shift or

24:48

the jobs wouldn't come in , because the marketing wasn't

24:50

perfect . If it was based upon , if

24:52

the car was being driven or whatever

24:54

, it wasn't as perfect as

24:57

it could have been . So it never got to the point of

24:59

full time . But it was take

25:01

this job piece here , subcontract there

25:03

and get the jobs done

25:05

. But it was always reliant on the next

25:07

big project that came in .

25:09

OK . So when did that phase

25:12

of your life end , or is it still running ?

25:14

It's a little bit running here and there for past clients

25:16

, but eventually I figured out . I said I

25:19

just want to work on a project

25:21

. So when I was doing those 8 to

25:23

10 projects I was like , ok , can we

25:25

just build this out into one

25:28

piece where all

25:30

of the time and effort let's take the video

25:32

and the audio and the development

25:34

and the coding

25:37

and build this into one project with

25:39

a partner that is maybe good at sales and

25:41

marketing pieces , and then they do

25:43

those and I can do mine . And

25:46

so I found a few partners

25:49

that wanted to build and scale

25:51

a big food ordering

25:53

service , but not for

25:56

retail to retail . This would be business to

25:58

business . So let's say , a small

26:00

restaurant would look

26:02

at multiple distributors in

26:05

their town and they would say , where

26:07

can I get 50 pounds of chicken this

26:09

week ? Where can I get 100

26:11

pounds of this or 25 pounds

26:14

of mozzarella cheese ? And there would be multiple different

26:16

sources . So then I got to use

26:18

not the video per se but

26:21

the pictures and the coding and

26:23

the database development and the

26:25

mobile app development all into one project

26:27

. And that took several years where we

26:29

patented this project . But

26:33

then we never got that one to market because we

26:35

didn't have the right connections . But

26:37

I liked the idea of building

26:40

with that team of people all focused on

26:42

one thing . In the startup world

26:44

, and that's really where I had that

26:47

change of OK . You could do

26:49

15 different projects for people , but

26:51

unless they're doing their own marketing

26:54

, you can't scale that . You

26:56

built that little piece for them , but it's really

26:58

reliant on them . So under a startup

27:00

world , you have a lot of control to say what

27:03

are we doing today , what are we doing tomorrow ? What's

27:05

the next six months ? Look like we don't have to say , hey

27:08

, are you going to do marketing ? No , I can't do marketing

27:10

right now . I just wanted a website , I just wanted a video . Ok

27:12

, well , what are we doing now ? I don't know

27:15

. They'd go and just disappear

27:17

, right . So I loved the idea

27:19

of building that one project and it kind of from

27:21

then on it was more one or

27:23

two main projects that

27:26

I was focusing on .

27:27

OK , but still in a

27:29

co-founder role

27:32

in all of those projects .

27:33

Not all the projects . The

27:36

food one was not a co-founder

27:38

, it was just a coding expert

27:40

. It was probably eventually going to be a co-founder

27:42

because I was one

27:44

of the main people behind it , but

27:46

that project gave birth to actually

27:49

Tweeva , which is what I'm

27:51

working on now , and that's same partners

27:53

but co-founder . And

27:56

that's where I loved using all those ideas , sure

27:58

.

28:00

Do you want to tell us how Tweeva came to be ?

28:03

Okay . So Tweeva was built out

28:06

from those same partners that were

28:08

in that food distribution

28:10

industry , but they were restaurant tours . So

28:12

we were sitting in one of the restaurants and

28:14

I just looked up at the TV one time and I said how

28:17

dare Pizza Hut Do they

28:19

not know who you are ? How

28:21

dare they advertise their pizza in your restaurant

28:24

? And we kind of chuckled a little bit

28:26

. And you know , we sat there , we saw

28:28

Domino's and a few others and

28:30

I just thought I think we all kind of combined

28:33

together , is there a way that we can create a

28:35

TV channel for small

28:38

businesses , but kind of like their own

28:40

TV channel , where they can

28:42

select what they want

28:45

on the TV and

28:47

give their opinion

28:49

? Hey , I don't want to see that commercial or

28:51

don't show any other food commercials

28:54

in my business , but

28:57

have it also a way that small

28:59

businesses can advertise ? And

29:01

that came from my

29:04

partner saying hey , there's a plumber sitting

29:06

over here , he's eating food . Okay , I just talked to this person . They

29:08

have a leak in their house . I love to connect

29:10

them . So he would say go , put your business card

29:12

up at the front . And so I said

29:14

, you know , we could put something on the

29:16

TV . He said great , great , let's just take

29:18

a picture of their business card , put it on TV . I said no , no , no

29:20

, it can't be . Can't be this like low quality

29:23

business card . It has to be something

29:25

, something nice . And

29:27

so you know we could go with a slide . You

29:30

know , call me , I'm the best plumber in the city . And

29:34

that might be nice . But it evolved

29:36

into more infotainment , like

29:40

why don't we show the plumber working

29:42

on a job in the city ? Like

29:45

you know that popular TV

29:48

show , this Old House where they go in and fix the ? You know they fix

29:50

a plumber pipe and they spend

29:52

10 minutes doing it . We could spend three , three or four , but it's

29:54

advertising who that business owner is

29:58

to that person . And

30:02

so it kind of changed

30:04

from just the advertising

30:07

screen to a little bit of businesses , a little bit of

30:09

news , weather , their social media , right . So

30:15

the business , when they would post something on Facebook , it would automatically

30:17

get added to

30:19

their TV . So if you walked in and you didn't follow , them , you might

30:21

say oh cool . They just I didn't know they were active on Facebook

30:24

, New follower , right . So

30:26

it builds their audience . But

30:28

this is now unique to every single business

30:30

that you walk in . It's not streamed down one channel

30:32

. Every

30:36

business has the ability to say , yeah , I want to show this

30:38

at my business or I don't want to show this at my business

30:40

. So that's kind

30:43

of how Tweeba works . But oh , I missed

30:45

. The main part is this is also

30:48

a community TV , so

30:52

you and me can walk up to the TV

30:54

and add our own piece of content or an advertisement on

30:56

the TV . So let's

30:58

say that there's a parade going through

31:00

town , right , and I take a picture of the parade , I

31:04

can share it onto the TV . So now this can be shared

31:06

to all the TVs in the community

31:09

or just the one TV . But it kind of

31:11

gives everybody a chance to see it . But it kind of

31:13

gives everybody a little bit

31:15

of view of what's going on . Now that could

31:18

be the parade or a Christmas

31:20

event or maybe something , a ballet

31:22

event that's happening , you know , oh , come

31:25

to this show , or a high school musical , who

31:27

knows ? But

31:29

major cities have this . It's

31:32

called , like Orlando , channel

31:34

11 , channel 12 . I forget what it

31:36

is , every major city has

31:38

one , but around every major city there's

31:40

like 500 small

31:42

cities that don't have a TV

31:44

channel . So that's what we wanted to do

31:46

is give back the business owner

31:48

the ability to advertise

31:51

on different TVs . And

31:53

it can't be , you know , cross competitive , but it would

31:55

be food to doctor office

31:57

, doctor office to food , right

32:00

Lawyer to food , food

32:03

to lawyer . That works , no food to food

32:05

, no lawyer to lawyer , no dentist to dentist

32:07

. But it gives the ability

32:10

for us to create a little network for

32:12

small businesses and influencers .

32:15

That makes a little sense . Is this

32:18

the original idea that you just described

32:20

, or is this what it became ?

32:21

It definitely became that In the beginning

32:24

it was a slideshow of

32:26

pictures that were dynamically

32:28

created based upon if

32:31

people were there or not , but semi

32:33

, you know , slideshow Like

32:36

just pieces of like little ads . It was weather . What

32:40

I really think we grew on is the influencing side . That's

32:43

really taken off , I don't know the past couple years . The

32:46

influencing side is huge because you

32:49

can give a business owner a lot of these tools , but they're

32:51

not necessarily going to do it . Like

32:54

I jokingly say , back

32:57

when I grew up , if I had a shoulder

32:59

camera which my dad had , you know and I plugged

33:01

it in and I'd be like all right , record , and I'd hit the

33:03

big red button , if anybody

33:06

saw me , they'd be like , wow , he's shooting something

33:08

professional , right

33:10

, yes , now

33:12

you could take an iPhone

33:14

4K or an Android 4K

33:17

, lift it up and , with the right lighting

33:19

, they could be

33:21

potentially shooting professional , yeah . And

33:24

so the problem is not

33:26

that we don't have the camera , the

33:29

problem is that we don't have a place to put

33:31

it . That seems valuable to us . So

33:34

, yes , a business owner could

33:36

put it on social media , but he doesn't

33:38

know if he should , if the lighting is

33:41

correct , if this is that . So

33:44

there's this whole different

33:46

industry that's created called influencers , where

33:49

they know how to use the video piece and

33:51

the audio piece and the media piece and

33:55

they know what looks good on each network . And

33:59

so for Tweeva , influencers

34:02

are very powerful , because you could be an influencer with

34:04

500,000 followers

34:08

and be sitting in a cafe and no one would know

34:10

who you are , especially if one town over Now

34:13

with Tweeva TV , if your

34:15

face showed up on the TV while you were

34:17

sitting there on a show like , oh

34:19

, okay , who's that over there ? I

34:22

think that's a person on TV . Right , that's him . That's

34:24

him . Yeah , that's

34:26

him . That's him . Okay , cool . What about

34:29

the plumber ? When's

34:32

the last time you saw a plumber or a lawyer in the

34:34

same restaurant that you were in ? You

34:37

wouldn't , because the ad is going to be $50,000 and he's eating

34:39

at a different place . But

34:42

if I can make the ad five cents , I

34:45

can allow anybody to

34:47

advertise that content on TV . But

34:50

you still need that a little bit of help from those influencers

34:52

, because they know how to frame the shot . Take this , no

34:55

, no , don't wait until the sun is down a little

34:57

bit further so you don't get shadows underneath your eyes , and

34:59

they do a really good job of that . But

35:03

yeah , this is a long-winded answer too . It's

35:05

grown and evolved with the technology . I think , like

35:07

I did before , is you play with the technology , you see

35:09

opportunity and then you kind of lean

35:11

in that direction . Okay

35:15

, let's take that piece and keep working

35:18

with this and keep moving forward , okay that

35:20

makes a lot of sense .

35:23

We don't have that many TVs in Europe in restaurants . It's

35:25

kind of low-key compared to the US , but

35:28

I remember my time in the US and it was really the

35:30

presence of those TVs everywhere and really part of the ambience

35:32

. It

35:35

makes a lot of sense in this context . That's

35:37

really something that brings a lot of bells .

35:38

Yeah , we don't want it to be TV as far as distracting , we

35:42

like the whole bring whatever

35:45

that restaurant is to the TV . So

35:47

, instead of like for the Italian restaurants

35:50

that we were testing and building in the first phase

35:52

, we sat there like how do

35:54

we bring the Italian view

35:57

into it ? Oh well , let's go find some drone footage

35:59

of Italy . You know some of the popular destinations

36:01

, play

36:03

that , play the chicken , parm and

36:05

this , and some employees that are in the kitchen

36:08

. Tell the customers

36:10

who the server is . And

36:13

does the server have a dog at home ? And

36:15

does the server drive a motorcycle on the weekends

36:17

? Because what we're trying to do

36:19

is not just be focused on oh

36:22

, this technology is the best , we could do everything

36:24

. Oh , we'll design it and they will come . It's

36:26

, how do we integrate that technology

36:28

to help a little relationship

36:31

between just somebody sitting

36:33

at a table and then talking

36:36

. You've been there before , I know it

36:38

. You've sat at a restaurant right with

36:41

another person , your wife and

36:43

you look over and you're like those

36:45

guys don't even talk to each other . It's so weird

36:47

to just like look around and the

36:49

server comes over . I'll have this , thank you , and they put it

36:52

away . What's missing there is

36:54

a little bit of connection of information

36:56

, something that matches . So

36:58

it might be . Oh , I saw you drive

37:00

a motorcycle on the weekends . Oh , that's so cool . Yeah

37:03

, it's my boyfriends , but we'd love to go out here . And oh

37:05

, my nephew drives a motorcycle . Now

37:07

we have a connection between those people and

37:11

if you think about it , where are we going next Friday ? You're

37:14

gonna go to a brand new place or you're probably gonna

37:16

go . Oh , let's go see how the nephew's

37:18

doing . Or I heard they went to college

37:20

, or the kid went to college . Let's go talk to them

37:22

and it becomes more of that relationship

37:25

. This is more like it was

37:27

without tech , but

37:29

we're using a little bit of that tech to stimulate

37:31

those little pieces of information

37:33

. So I don't wanna be a TV channel

37:35

, I wanna be a connection

37:37

into the community where we can

37:40

help people , right ? So

37:43

yeah , it has definitely morphed from this

37:45

advertising screen into how do we

37:47

integrate and help people connect more

37:49

.

37:51

So that means there

37:53

is a possible future where that TV

37:55

would not disappear

37:58

but take way less precedence in

38:00

your business , because you found a different way , maybe

38:02

better way , for some context to create

38:05

those connections . In the context of

38:07

restaurants , yeah , it

38:09

could .

38:09

If it's not part of the TV , it could be something else

38:11

a QR code that connects people

38:13

, or a game right , it wouldn't

38:16

be TV per se , as we think TV

38:18

is , but it could be a game on Friday

38:20

night that we're using the TV to get a clue and

38:22

we respond on our phone , but

38:25

it's something that's happening . Or a scavenger

38:27

hunt around the communities where the TV

38:29

is not showing news , but it might be showing

38:31

an Easter egg and you have to go to all these different businesses

38:33

and find the golden one . You

38:36

know , it could be anything but just being

38:38

a little digital screen that's not

38:40

given away to a soap opera

38:43

. Or like I was sitting in this one pizza shop

38:45

waiting to talk to a manager and

38:47

he was on one of these cable channels Discovery

38:49

or something and it was this

38:51

man who murdered his girlfriend . And

38:53

I'm sitting here at

38:55

like my two slices of pizza going

38:57

, okay

38:59

, I'll give you 30 seconds , see what happens . And he's

39:02

like he drove to the darkest side

39:04

of Arizona where there's no

39:06

cell phone , and I'm like , okay , and

39:08

then he took duct tape . I'm like what are we going

39:10

with this ? And then he went to

39:12

this road and made a left . I'm like you guys are just

39:15

, what are you doing here ? You're giving

39:17

people instructions and I said

39:19

you really don't have anything

39:21

that's going on in the community that's better

39:23

than this . Okay , there

39:25

probably is , but there was a disconnect

39:27

into what should I show at my restaurant . Some

39:29

people like this channel . Okay , maybe it

39:31

started off at the cooking show , but by three pm in

39:33

the afternoon that station has nothing

39:36

left , so they're playing that . Could

39:39

we benefit the person sitting there

39:41

? Okay , in my town

39:43

we have a nationally recognized

39:45

football team , high school football team . I've

39:48

never seen a catch

39:50

or a touchdown anywhere

39:52

on local TV because it

39:54

doesn't exist . So can

39:56

that be shown ? Can somebody

39:58

be sitting there ? Or are you with a professional camera

40:01

or their iPhone , be shooting

40:03

a couple of highlight clips and sharing

40:05

that to the community ? Absolutely

40:07

. Then we have a tennis , we have a basketball

40:10

Of all these things that could create

40:12

what people

40:14

are missing today . I

40:17

want recognition . I want recognition . People will take a lower

40:19

pay at a job for recognition

40:22

because they think , oh , to get me somewhere . How

40:24

many kids are looking for this ? Let's

40:26

get them on talking , developing

40:29

their own little TV spots . This

40:32

is all possible , but the network

40:34

has to be built out . So yeah

40:37

, this is again a long-winded answer , but the

40:39

vision , that's the forward vision of what

40:41

can you do with it .

40:43

And I love that . I love that your vision is not defined

40:45

by the technology , but really by what

40:47

you aim to be creating

40:50

with it . And if that changes

40:52

I mean if the technology changes well , so what

40:54

? The vision is still valid , it's

40:56

still what you're after and that is gorgeous

40:58

. That's what you want for business really .

41:01

Yeah , we have in the patent some piece for AR

41:03

goggles that if we're

41:05

looking either at a screen or an indirection , can

41:07

something pop up and we can talk about

41:10

that thing , something local , and

41:13

we're always looking forward to that next piece

41:15

in that nerd world where

41:17

you literally have to be 20 years forward and

41:20

looking in that direction . But yeah , doesn't

41:22

matter what it is that end goal

41:25

is and I've learned this is

41:27

not . It is very technology

41:29

, but you almost have to tell

41:31

and explain to people that are not understanding

41:35

your 200 hours , 500

41:37

hours , 1,000 hours into the project what

41:39

the vision , what the goal is

41:42

, because not everybody understands

41:44

what Zapier is . They

41:46

just don't why do

41:49

I need ? it . Why do I need it ? You

41:51

can save time . I don't need it . Yeah

41:53

, it's hard to explain , but you

41:55

have to come up with those bigger

41:58

size not

42:00

goals , but it's like a vision of what you want

42:02

to build out .

42:04

It's an either vision , it's a vision . Yeah , yeah

42:06

, fantastic . That's exciting

42:08

. I wish you all the best of luck with SWIVA

42:11

for the future .

42:12

That's really cool . Thank you , thank you .

42:15

For the advice piece I usually end up on

42:17

. I'd like to come back to one thing you said , where

42:20

you were describing yourself

42:22

as a technologist and saying well , you

42:25

didn't say I , you didn't pronounce it this way

42:27

, necessarily , but you say something like hey

42:29

, if you build the right thing , people are gonna come

42:31

, it's gonna work . No need for marketing , and

42:34

I've seen this so many times , being guilty

42:36

of that as well . What

42:38

would be the best advice you would have

42:41

for the listeners ? To

42:43

start stepping out

42:45

of this mindset , Start dabbling a

42:47

little bit on marketing , Start

42:49

making a little bit of noise about

42:51

what they do and not only relying on

42:53

the inherent qualities

42:55

of the products that are definitely there but

42:58

nobody knows about .

43:00

So we went through a business accelerator

43:03

and they had talked about

43:05

in the very beginning of when you were trying

43:07

to build your startup

43:09

, and this was a $10,000 course . And

43:11

then they bring you to VC capital

43:13

and they had said

43:15

they've looked at our project and

43:17

said where's your press releases , where

43:20

is your Facebook groups , where

43:23

are your emails

43:26

that you would send to potential customers

43:28

? And we said , well , we're focusing

43:31

on development , we're focusing on

43:33

building the product we're focused on

43:35

. And they said , you know , that's

43:37

called a development loop , where

43:39

you just keep saying , oh , I'll build this for

43:41

this person and I'm gonna build this for this set of

43:43

groups . And so I think the piece

43:46

that we missed in the very beginning

43:48

and I've missed for quite a while

43:50

because I was in behind the scenes is talk

43:53

about your product . Even if you

43:55

get five little

43:57

customers in the very beginning to be interested

44:00

about what you do , they

44:02

can bring you to five or 10 more . And

44:05

that's the way that you wanna really scale

44:07

in the beginning , because when you have a problem , something

44:10

doesn't work . If somebody

44:12

doesn't know you or doesn't understand that long-term

44:15

goal , they just say , oh

44:17

, it doesn't work , it will never work , and

44:19

they just cancel the subscription , whereas

44:21

if they understand that goal for the longer

44:24

term , oh well , this guy has been working

44:26

in tech for so long and this is one

44:28

of the things that accumulation

44:30

of . He used

44:32

to do video and he used to do audio

44:34

and now he's building out a TV network . Give

44:37

him a week or two , that bug will be fixed

44:39

. See , that response is completely

44:41

different from someone who understands you

44:45

can't get that from somebody just hits

44:47

your website from a search . They don't

44:49

understand what's going on . So

44:51

when you have those first customers not

44:54

even customers , let's just say the first people that are really

44:56

looking at you or you come up with an idea , you wanna build

44:58

it . You have to build that vision

45:00

and the goal and back

45:03

it up with what

45:06

they refer to as media , which

45:08

is a press release . Or this is

45:10

what we're developing . There's a team of engineers

45:12

in restaurant and

45:15

tech building out a small business

45:17

TV channel , blah , blah , blah and that's a press

45:19

release . And then you'd send out emails

45:21

, right , and talk about what you're developing

45:24

this week or this month or the next six months . If

45:28

you're serious , right , if you're building a little baby product

45:30

, you wanna just get it out to a couple hundred people . It's

45:32

not gonna be that big of a deal . But what we're trying to focus

45:34

on is something big , and I think most

45:37

people when they get into a startup

45:39

, they want to build something big . So

45:41

you don't have to do that

45:43

a hundred times . I think maybe five

45:46

or 10 in a year would

45:48

be plenty . Right , once every month , once

45:50

every two months , you just send something

45:52

out and you start building a wait

45:55

list . That's a very important thing , too Is

45:57

if you have a product you talk to people out . Hey , give me your

45:59

email . Because when we got to the venture

46:02

capital , they said oh man , this is such a great product , you

46:04

must have 50,000 people waiting for you

46:06

. And we said , well

46:09

, no , probably . Yeah , no

46:12

, we can't lie . It was like no , we don't , because

46:15

we went through . Well , we actually had a co-founder pass

46:17

away too , so we didn't get to

46:19

where we should have been and

46:21

there was a little pause in there . So

46:26

we had a couple of issues . But

46:29

that first piece of advice is if you are

46:31

in the tech world , please focus

46:33

a little bit on that marketing outside

46:36

. And what you

46:38

can do much easier than what we could have done previous

46:40

to ChatGPT is oh , I don't know how

46:42

to save this in the press release . I don't know what kind of title

46:45

to write Use ChatGPT , train

46:47

it to what your product is and then say , hey

46:49

, I want to not

46:52

give away a lot of information , but I want

46:54

to give enough away to peak interest . Give me

46:56

a title in the description for Facebook

46:59

Group or Facebook Post or something

47:01

. And just learn that if you

47:03

can acquire five emails a week

47:05

from average people that

47:07

can understand what you're trying to sell , you'd

47:10

be in a much better place than

47:12

98% of startups .

47:16

Amen to that , Dave . Thank you so

47:18

much for this advice and for sharing your story . That was really

47:20

cool . Where would be the

47:22

best place to continue this discussion with you ?

47:25

So you can find me and Tweeva

47:28

on all those social media platforms

47:30

. So you can go to twevacom

47:35

. That's our website . My email

47:37

is daveatweevacom

47:39

, and just we're on all the social media so

47:41

you can hit me up on social media . You can email me

47:43

or just visit the website .

47:46

And we'll add links to the show notes in

47:48

the show notes . So just scroll down

47:50

, click on it . Everything will be there , Dave

47:52

. Anything else on your plate ?

47:55

You know , I'll say if you're a small business , you

47:57

know , if you have something a

48:00

little foot traffic business

48:02

, a restaurant , we'd love to have you join

48:04

the network . And if you're an influencer , same thing , we'd love

48:07

to have you join the network . You heard it you have

48:09

a mobile app too , so you can download

48:11

the apps in the iOS and the Android

48:13

store .

48:15

Awesome . Well , I'd link to that as well , Dave

48:17

thank you so much .

48:18

Thank you so much for having me . It was a lot of fun going

48:20

back in history and talking a little bit about how

48:23

we started the whole thing .

48:25

It's real to hear that , and this

48:27

has been another episode of DevPost Journey

48:29

. I will see each other next week , Bye-bye

48:32

. Thanks a lot for

48:34

tuning in . I hope you have enjoyed this

48:36

week's episode . If you like the show

48:38

, please share , rate and

48:41

review . It helps more listeners

48:43

discover those stories . You

48:45

can find the links to all the platforms

48:48

the show appears on on our website devjourneyinfo

48:52

slash subscribe . Talk

48:56

to you soon .